Poem of the Week: Dan Vera

            

      

The Borders Are Fluid Within Us 

 

This is what is feared:

that flags do not nourish the blood,

that history is not glorious or truthful.

  

I sleep and dream in two languages.

I gain wisdom from more than one fountain.

  

I pass between borders

made to control what is owned.

The body cannot be owned.

The land cannot be owned,

only misunderstood or named by its knowing. 

-Dan Vera    

Used by permission.

From Speaking Wiri Wiri (Red Hen Press, 2013) 

Dan Vera is a writer, editor, and literary historian living in Washington, DC. He is the author of the poetry collection The Space Between Our Danger and Delight (Beothuk Books, 2008), and the editor of the gay culture journal White Crane. His second collection, Speaking Wiri Wiri, was the inaugural winner of the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize. His poetry has appeared in various journals including Notre Dame Review, Beltway Poetry, Delaware Poetry Review, Cutthroat, Gargoyle, Little Patuxent Review, Naugatuck River, the anthologies Divining Divas, Full Moon On K Street: Poems About Washington, DC, and DC Poets Against the War. He's the co-creator of the literary history site, DC Writers' Homes, and on the board of Split This Rock. 

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