In a day, a week, a month, a year

wounds doze, they sleep they

disappear, but this wound is

deeper than the days.

 

Deeper than the dark jungle from

which boys flew, freezing, hungry,

sweltering, thirsty, scared, scarred.

The jungle gave all, but not enough.

 

Deeper than the pockets of the

trafficker who promised them Spain,

Italy, France,  Germany, England, the

sun, the moon, the stars—everything.

 

Deeper than the drying wells in the village.

Women, their mothers, wailing, holding,

begging  them to stay, promising that water

will return.  But they know it is only a mirage.

 

Deeper than the wrinkles on their fathers’

tired, haggard faces.  In Africa women wail,

men just get wrinkles and die young. But

they will live faraway, they will live forever.

 

Deeper than the Mediterranean sea, this

infinite catacomb of sorrow that swallowed

Amadou, Justin, Salifou, Simeon and many

more—leaving me lonely in Lampedusa.

 

Dead dreams of success, wealth, love,

health, freedom, dreams of a life (like

that of other people) free from fear,

pain, shame, disease, darkness, death.

 

They say that time erases all pain, just

like the wind that sweeps away autumn

leaves, like the waves that flatten castles

of sand—but not this pain, not this wound.

 

An hour, a day, a week, a month, a year,

a decade, even a century can never

make this wound disappear.  It is

deeper than time, wider than the sea.