HUMAN RIGHTS
Even the crippled, the
cringing,
the beggars squatting
cross-legged
among balls of dung along
the road, squeezed forth by
shanty walls, have leave to sink
to dappled chairs on public
grass;
inhale spring air; accept
soft
sunbeams’ kind massage.
We are
those forms behind the wire
-- dispersed stray
point-men in an ancient war, two
breaths from barbed
despair. If
fortune smiles, beware: the smile
is thin. Cascading disappointments
are foreshadowed there.
Poetica Magazine, Fall 2016