There’s a dead rat beside the bins
by the tables
laid out with curries
rice and bread
gaffer taped paper cloth
flapping in the wind
like a tattered prayer flag
where the boys sit on the railings
full of bravado and hopeless dreams
scuffed trainers dusty and wet
pinched tired exhausted faces
waiting running waiting
waiting again and again
an endless game
of cat and mouse
I met an old man from Afghanistan
with milky grey eyes
a faraway stare
like a surfer watching for a wave
his home a cardboard box
his family missing
presumed dead
all he wanted was to go home
to his orchard
and tend his apricot trees
he could have been my dad
I thought
a lawyer by trade
but his luck had run out
wrong country
wrong place
wrong time
here but for the grace of God
go we
and the queue for food
snaked past the rubbish
the squalor
the mud
the bored policemen
in the jungle
This composition is published as part of our Refugee: Poems of Courage collection, presented in collaboration with Poems Not Bombs, part of the Forest Poets collective.
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