Poems and Translations
Poetry of Sholeh Wolpé <Back To Poems Home Page
My Brother at The Canadian Border
for Omid
On their way to Canada in a red Mazda, my brother and his
friend, PhDs and little sense, stopped at the border and the guard leaned forward, asked: Where you boys heading?
My brother, Welcome to Canada poster in his eyes replied: Mexico. The guard blinked, stepped back then forward, said: Sir, this is the Canadian border.
My brother turned to his friend, grabbed the map from his hands, slammed it on his shaved head. You stupid idiot, he yelled, you’ve been holding the map upside down.
In the interrogation room full of metal desks and chairs with
wheels that squeaked and florescent light humming, bombarded with questions, and finally: Race?
Stymied, my brother confessed: I really don’t know, my parents never said, and the woman behind the desk widened her blue eyes to
take in my brother’s olive skin, hazel eyes, the blonde fur that
covered his arms and legs. Disappearing behind a plastic partition,
she returned with a dusty book, thick as War and Peace, said: This
will tell us your race. Where was your father born? She asked, putting on her horn-rimmed glasses. Persia, he said. Do you mean I-ran?
I ran, you ran, we all ran, he smiled. Where’s your mother from? Voice cold as a gun. Russia, he replied. She put one finger on a word
above a chart in the book, the other on a word at the bottom of the page, rought them together looking like a mad mathematician
bent on solving the crimes of zero times zero divided by one. Her fingers stopped on a word. Declared: You are white.
My brother stumbled back, a hand on his chest, eyes wide, mouth
in an O as in O my God! All these years and I did not know. Then to the room, to the woman and the guards: I am white I can go anywhere
Do anything I can go to Canada and pretend it’s Mexico At last, I am white and you have no reason to keep me here.
— Sholeh Wolpé
From: The Scar Saloon (Red Hen Press)
Audio from The Scar Saloon --CD
