May we not be detained before we exchange
our many wearied feet for the paper of wings.

Instead of a wall let there be a chrysalis, emergent
shell our bodies make so we may safely eclose.

A barrier by any name scars the liminal, milkweeded ground
where our dead dissolve and the river eats our thirst.

Do not come with your slice of machines, your monster
of unscalable steel morphing in our hammock of trees.

Let our liquid imaginal cells become the possibilities
of color unfolding as we reassemble what makes us whole.

Let not the land be divided, nor the silken clutch of our
bodies, nor our hearts that hang and twist in the fight.