Artist: Unknown

“The hireling and slave”

They call us
illegaldreamers
make jokes from the splinters
of our English
nail us down to white crosses
on their borders
while they pray into their flags
oh, say, can you see?
how their dawn breaks our backs
how their sneers make us gag
we spend lifetimes
living under their feet
eating from the cracks between streets
living but not really living
like we should.

I was nine
the day my uncle kissed the sky
the day my father found him
flying free
rustling his feathers against the stars
no crosses no jail cells no bars
no places he couldn’t fit
spending lifetimes
under clouds too high
for us to touch him
like we used to.

I was nine
when I learned that death
was an escape
a secret between brown bodies
and the sky
because without bodies
how can they
keep us
still?