I'm informed at the embassy,

By a bureaucrat from Cork

(With syncopated musicality in his talk),

That to renew my Irish passport,

I need signed and stamped testimony

From a witness clearly stating,

I am who I am.

I taste the blood from my tongue biting.

Forcing myself. 

Begging myself,

Not to point out

That asking foreigners,

Slap bang in the middle of Madrid,

To prove I am an Irish citizen,

Is an oxymoron of Google tax-paying proportions.

I keep quiet about

The existential angst I have

On the uncertainty of my answer.

To the question "Are you who you are?"

Or more succinctly "Who are you?"

Did El Quixote have to prove he was

A man of La Mancha?

The list of certified witnesses includes:

A clergyman of the Holy Roman Order

(Again I nod and refuse to ask if the priest is valid for children too.)

A bank manager

(To confirm in the words of Wilde that I know the price of everything and the value of nothing.)

Your boss

(Because no one wears a mask at work and the self-employed are more self-aware.)

A policeman

(Later the Guarda Civil looks at me in baffled bewilderment.

"But señior, I have never met you until now!"

His use of the formal Ustede makes me feel even more a fraud.)

An accountant

(To confirm I know the value of everything and the price of nothing.)

A lawyer

(The party of the first concludes the party of the second is indeed the party of the first.)

A school principal

(So they can learn who I didn't become and my lost potential.)

A doctor

(A diagnosis on the pulse of existence.)

An elected public representative

(If I swap my vote, and morals for my identity,

Am I any better than my terrorist-bearded passport photo?)

I will give credit where credit is due,

My motherland is at least

Epistemological in its observance

Of the fine print.