Exile Love Song

I go sometimes
to the border
and look back to you,
to the place
I’m from,
the place
from which I’m exiled.

I want to hold your hands again.
I want to look you in the eye
and tell you I’m sorry,

for you’re lost
as I’m lost,

and I think we’d do well together,
my flooded,
impossible to drain,
tumbledown,
insolvent,
sunken-eyed, sullenly
beloved homeland.

All I wanted
was to love you, to put you
out of our shared misery,
but what I call love
you call treason;

if we can agree
that both are true,
how about
you let me come home
and prove the former
to you?