"Prospective Immigrants Please Note"
By Adrienne Rich

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.

"Prospective Immigrants Please Note" Copyright © 1993, 1967, 1963 by Adrienne Rich, from COLLECTED EARLY POEMS: 1950-1970 by Adrienne Rich. Used by permission of the author and W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. This selection may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.