Amir Darwish
We are Syrian Refugees

We are Syrian refugees in Nicosia,
Standing with our back
To Beirut, facing Athens.

It’s 6 AM.
The queue at Brussels immigration
Centre curve like a giant
Anaconda to process us.

London opened a window of
Opportunity so we dissolved to
Its crowds like sand into water,
Water into sea, sea into sky

It is sunny around the beaches of Sardinia,
Where our bodies are sea shells washed away
And dumped for passers to give us an
Evil eye: envying our status of death.

Viva La Paris where suddenly
It shied away from us forgetting its imperial
Legacy that used our bones as a table to serve:
Liberty, equality and fraternity.

Oh, it’s Rome and the spring has
Just entered, so did Italians into us.
We are in Copenhagen’s streets, uselessly
Reminding Danes of our diet as we starve.

Near Sultan Ahmed Mosque we gathered
Blissful for Istanbul to penetrate our honour
Then drop us like snow into the black sea:
Evaporate, rain, so forth, so on
Again and again the process repeated.