Across The Border

I
I don't go upstairs on the bus anymore -
too scared of men, their razored tongues
that cut through cloth, skin, flesh;
right to the heart of things.

Make me remember I never meant to leave -
what you know is so much easier, safe.
Bozol, lazanki, pierogi, golabki;
phantom tastes water my mouth.

But then I came here, people were so kind -
opened themselves to me, flowers to bees,
liked my difference, my lips lisping;
stuttering over new sounds.

The sting when it came was brutal -
Brexit and broken glass, letterboxes
stuffed with hate mail, three words;
Polish go home.

II
Had they even kissed before
when she ran away with him, mad dash
over the border to the blacksmith's shop.

Did she run her tongue
over the soft seam of his lips, pause
slip in her tongue and taste him?

Or were they almost strangers
caught up in something, a lot like love
and the scent of adventure.

I cannot tell from her photograph,
They ran like children into their future
cut themselves off from the past.

III
Pencilled in lines, muddied, sullied
trodden down by treading, heavy boots,

are rewritten, made indelible in the red ink
of spilt blood churning the brown earth ruddy,

smearing itself across the paper thin
skins of too many dead in Syria,

in Turkey, in Somalia, Sudan. In Afghanistan
and Nigeria, Yemen, Irak.

Leaving a taste like metal in our mouths,
leaving our hands bloody.