Feti’s Border Crossing

Copyright © 2022 by Alan Michael Parker. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 16, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“Bingo card poems highlight the simultaneity of experience, even though only some of the experiences may come true, since there are so many ways to get Bingo, and not every square will be ‘called.’ Here, my protagonist is trying to cross a border and see her kids, and feeling profiled, the racism of the situation in every storyline. Feti speaks, thinks, hears, and imagines—everything all at once, the impossible made possible by the Bingo card form. And everything matters, because it all happens to Feti and so many others every day.”
—Alan Michael Parker