The Migrant And His Child

Migrant lives are often denied dignity in death – just as they are in life. The recent lockdown made that starkly visible.

Yesterday your mother said,

they will give us onions and bread

and you slept on her by the tracks.

Don’t try to wake her today – she’s dead.

Tomorrow, you’ll wake again in soot

and your plight will they turn into vote.

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and saviours with pockets bursting in cash.

Our cracked feet and parched mouths were worthless,

Our mothers had no money to buy us coffins;

So they gave us funeral beds on trains

and bread and blood on railway tracks.

Ignoble faces of authority wore masks of commiseration

They walked past us and threw tens and twenties

with masks on their face and Adidas on their feet.

They reaped our sweat and remitted peril,

and announced for us funds in worthless figures

when we needed a pyre, a coffin, a burial.

I am haunted by the raven returning home at dusk

and rats on squalid pavements by gutters

where we sleep and wake, and my wife gives birth

and my famished brother is relieved in death.

My mouth curls as it drips in foul foam and I laugh

and I laugh till I’m free of this vile world.

Image source: Pexels

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