The Migrants

The Migrants

 

A sea stands on its white foot--

I travel through your gray hair.

 

You go, a hook where hands should be-

Can you recover the oil of your joints?

 

They've made a soup of your jaw bone--

A purse of your cheeks, and teeth for rattling.

 

You found the oceans ear, it does not listen.

A bucket of laundry water behooves you--

 

I am the air dissolved for its sound-

We swell to our burdens, happy workers--

 

We are the seated cleaners,

we are home.

Reviews

[R J Askew]

This makes me think. Is it literally about migrants? Or are the migrants thoughts, or the stuff of life? Maybe I have to read this in about three ways. It could be about an elderly relative, literally. The bit about joints and bones suggest decay. We are all migrants through life. Oceans, soup, oil, dissolving, all suggest something primal, the motion of life. 'I travel through your gray hair' is the line that intrigues me the most. Is it your eye, or your thoughts connecting with an elder perhaps? 'You go' could mean death, it cld also refer to 'le petite mort' as that involves a going of life's 'happy workers' so to speak. And the hooked hand might lead a certain type of reader to reach that concludion. Or is it really about migrants? It makes me think we are all migrants through life heading to death.

[Gandré]

yepp, this is the idea of America - work hard and earn your citizenship. I've been in the museum of immigration - I've seen that hard life. I liked this poem, it took me t here. 100p