with no white name
with no black name
with no mixed blood
obvious enough to claim
with no history
of washing ashore
on a dinghy, or nearly
dying in a jungle war
with no complicated love
with no indigenous face
with no movie star relative
with no time spent working
for a sheikh in the middle east
with no lost years hiding
in basements without papers
with no siblings betrothed
to factory sewing
machines with no comfort
woman for a grandmother
with no deadbeat for
a father or call
girl for a mother
with no pedigree
of either poverty
or wealth with which
to thicken narrative