I am offering my poem as my way of confronting the terrible situation in which I find myself. I am 55 year old Australian woman and my partner, who is American, is 68. I recently spent a year living with her in the US on an extended tourist visa but have had to return home because the US does not recognise same sex relationships for the purpose of immigration sponsorship. Even if we were to marry under the new Californian laws it would make no difference as Immigration is Federal and above State law. At our ages, the separation is all the more heartbreaking as time is not on our side, so poetry is a way I can express some of the pain I feel about being separated from her and educate others to the injustices of this system.

Independence Day

by Noni Daniell

Independence Day...

Citizens celebrate

Freedom for all

Flag flying to demonstrate

Equal rights

Speakers pontificate

Gay, straight or bi

CA Lawyers adjudicate

Get the certificate!

We're still invisible

Same sex lovers

We are divisible

Federal immigration says

If nationality's derivable

From another country

It's quite decisionable

To keep us apart

Or make us imprisonable!

Red rockets flying

Consider fellow Americans

Aching, crying

Clandestine secret lives

Scared and lying

Or leaving their own country

Hurting, sighing

Seeking just the freedom

They're no longer buying

On Independence Day