New Passport

Burgundy cover
Ten years' validity
My own name

The old one expired wearing his surname
A souvenir from a country I left
Filling the form felt briefly like forgery —
Writing a name I set down at twenty-five
My grandmother's spelling, the difficult H
The name she wrote on flour bags and hymn sheets
On the inside covers of borrowed books
The name that fed people and finished school
The one the registrar double-checked, twice
Who smiled and said 'that's a good name'
Like a man who reads a lot of forms
The envelope came on a Wednesday
Too stiff for the letterbox — knocked for
Signed for, carried in with two hands
I signed for it with the new old name
And my hand didn't hesitate once
The courier said 'big day?' — they can tell
I said 'ten years of them.'

Page one, there she is —
Bad photo, right name
Ten years of anywhere
Issued to the woman I was born

New passport!
(My own name)
Bad photo, best document
Signed it once and my hand didn't shake —
New passport, whole world open

Issued to?
(Herself)
Valid for?

The maiden trip was small on purpose — a ferry
A weekend, cheese I can't pronounce
A hotel with a view of a car park
That I loved beyond all reason
Breakfast for one by the window, savoured
The whole itinerary answerable to nobody
At the desk the officer looked twice —
Not at me, at the page, respectful —
And said it
Said my name out loud off the page
All four syllables, accidentally perfect
And waved me through like it was nothing
Behind me my name hung in the air a second
Correct, complete, off duty
It was not nothing
I walked onto that boat like a delegation
Of one, representing the republic of me
All visas granted, all flags my colours
Sent my sister a photo of the stamp
She replied: "she's back." She is
I ate the unpronounceable cheese on deck
Wind doing what wind does to a free woman's hair

Page one, there she is —
Bad photo, right name
Ten years of anywhere
And anywhere just got told

New passport!
(My own name)
Bad photo, best document
Signed it once and my hand didn't shake —
New passport, whole world open

Window seat
Cheese acquired
First stamp: perfect
Stamped, witnessed, watertight —
The courier was right. Big day

A name can be a suitcase
Somebody else packs for you
I carried his eleven years, polite about the weight
The new one weighs nothing
Mine before I could walk
Mine at every border now
All four syllables out loud
Till the pages run out of room

New passport!
(My own name)
First stamp in and pages hungry
My grandmother's spelling at every border —

(Everywhere)
New passport

New passport, whole world open

New passport!

New passport!

(Everywhere)
New passport

(Everywhere)
New passport
(Everywhere)
New passport