Poetry

Carlo Allegri/Reuters

By

Lianne Kamp

America First

I see them most days – grouped across

the street from Home Depot – carrying

nothing but the weight of their coats –

their solid short statured bodies line the

rock walls waiting for what they have come

to recognize as opportunity

today is a cold day – their conversations

drift in puffs of white air around the

brown skin of their faces mostly smiling –

I want to know what words they pass

the time with – where they go if the

truck never comes – will they eat lunch –

will their families?

I see him too now most days – his

mouth forming that unnatural O perfect

for blowing smoke rings to give shape

and shadow to words that have no substance –

but hover around his pale face –

a smokescreen of fear

and he is determined to weed them out –

these solid short statured immigrant workers –

these rapists and drug dealers – send them back –

build a wall to cage them where they belong –

as if it was always

our America first

Lianne Kamp

I came to Boston many years ago to write poetry.  Although I never abandoned poetry altogether, life had different plans for me. I have rediscovered the importance of writing and over the last year have been published in a number of Prolific Press journals. Mainly, I write poetry to make my world more panoramic by watching it more closely.