Poems on Politics
Because of Hands and Bread
After a newspaper picture of refugees on a bus
Left hands out of the bus window
Wrists, palms, fingers
Cannot reach the loaves of bread
Offered by a right hand. Where are your
Bodies, your faces, your mouths?
Your hand hand hand
Reflected on the side of the bus like
A forest in the river.
Go home now.
Soon the bus will leave
This will be the beginning of your exile
You will lose the keys to your houses
You will forget the names of trees and flowers.
Your hands cut off at the wrists
Will float in the Great Blue River;
Tree trunks, split buses.
Downstream — under the Memorial Bridge
Your hands will wave to other hands
Hands hands hands
Like your own
Swollen and toy-like.
This is the beginning of your exile.
:: Design by Waterman
:: Logo woodcut by Barbara Leventhal-Stern
