"Alive or Dead" - from Rhymes Lost to Reason: The poetry of Peter Elyakim Taussig

Alive or Dead

Street Art by Nelsom Rivas - Cekis

I was pronounced
Alive or dead
In my foreign accent
At birth.
My pulse already beating to an alien rhythm
My breath exhaling that odor of elsewhere
But it was the eyes
Wide open
As if peering over a fence
The eyes of an Expat
Always looking in
That were the dead giveaway -

For they saw the dead
Among the living
Huddling and resentful
And the living
Who though blind
Straining to peer
Over their own fences.