They trudge on foot
teeter on train rooftops
jam into rafts
crawl through stinking sewers
suffocate in cargo trucks
They flee starvation
bombed-out cities
torture, massacre, rape
give all they have to smugglers
their backpacks filled only
with memories and hope
They swim rivers
scale walls, fences
huddle in the brush
evade the patrols
They wash onto beaches
live in tent cities
in hovels ten to a room
grateful to pick our mushrooms
and manicure our lawns
A better poet than I
sang of this wretched refuse
these tempest-tossed arrivals
and promised they’d enter
through the golden door
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