Refugees - Ed Coletti

[Larry Robinson]

Refugees
 
 
Someone else’s little boy
walking immediately behind
 
I arrive at the final check point
am insistently waved through
 
I want nothing more in the world
only to simply cross over
 
Certainly not change to salt
looking back at the child
 
All I have left to me is
my ability to rationalize
 
At best for me on the other side
stretch  twenty declining  years
 
seventy or eighty for him
But I am not this child’s keeper am I
 
He has my sympathy: From him I have
the burn of his eyes on my  reddening neck
 
all the more so as I admit to myself
I am not helpless before this determined little kid
 
Here in the presence of real human suffering
All I have left: clear choice and ability to justify

	- Ed Coletti
	
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