Chen-ou Liu

Following the Moon to the Maple Land

Name: Chen-ou Liu (phonic);
Country of Birth: R.O.C.;
(Cross out R.O.C. and fill in Taiwan)
Place of Birth; Date of Birth; Sex;
simply more technocratic questions
the Immigration Officer needs to pin down my borders.
He is always looking for shortcuts,
more interested in the roadside signposts
than in the landscape that has made me.
The line he wants me confined to
is an analytically recognizable category:
immigrant. My history is meticulously stamped.
Now, you're legally a landed immigrant.
Take a copy of A Newcomer’s Introduction to Canada.

from Lake Ontario
I scoop the Taiwan moon
distant sirens

Note: The free verse of my haibun is a revision of my poem with the same title, which was included in Broken/Breaking English: Selected Short Poems, 2013 Edition).