the year of two thousand sixteen in signs

A poem on crossing borders
By Sabrina Mahfouz
    • 23/02/2017

    (1) There’s a sign

    it says
    HANG THE REPIST
    it means

    the small flame of our candle
    simply melts white wax
    as we walk streets
    by painted temples

    same as he did
    when he took the child
    she looking for rainbow puddles
    friends to play with, no time for prayers
    only just old enough to say
    four years of coaxing consonants to say

    I want to go home now. 

    Her fractured body found car park cold
    family loudly told, we will find them we will.
    They don’t.

    (2) There’s a sign 

    it says
    THEY CAN’T KILL US ALL
    it means

    of course they can almost
    they killed almost an entire race before
    erase any remaining marks on the whiteboard
    never use permanent pen, you know this.
    It’s not beyond imagination.
    What is beyond imagination?
    Perhaps suffocating on chroma
    desperate for air like anticipatory drone bombs
    held back by button-stuck sticky donut thumbs
    belonging to the land of the free:
    free to what free to mock free to jail
    free to hate free to name free to fire
    free to rape free to hit free to rob
    free free free free free free free free
    what does such a word mean when you exist on a Kill List longer than the Nile?

    (3) There’s a sign

    it says
    NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL
    it means

    some people have
    seen cracked clouds of boats above
    skinned tails of mermaids
    spoke to their babies through salt-mills
    and still
    they must just want nice teeth.

    A girl is born to a blanket of shrapnel
    little mouth wailing that she is alive
    a forest dries into safety deposit boxes
    grocery shops cost a year’s salary
    a year’s salary is sludged into drainpipes
    the girl full of metal cannot grow, she goes.
    There is one child left now, save him, go
    lonely son go and take your place amongst
    theft, murder, speeding, vandalism, arson
    be illegal
    but be you, alive, heart beating
    until I can impound you back to my arms.

    (4) There’s a sign

    it says
    JOURNALISM IS NOT A CRIME

    it means

    as long as we say what you want us to say,
    which is nothing that you haven’t already said.

    Do you think words sleep scattered just for you
    like culled lavender buds
    lilac, fragrant, waiting?

    We forge Morse codes for modernity
    hoping no politician can decipher them
    because to write plainly
    is to compose a damp, square cell
    or otherwise stab broken bulbs into our hands.

    (5) There’s a sign 

    it says
    THAWRET EL GHALABA
    it means

    literally, Revolution of the Poor
    but we all know it hasn’t been that
    when was it ever
    even if it is their skin stretched on placards
    even if it is their children who know a Frappuccino
    is the same price as one month’s bread
    but who cares anyway
    cos they met a man who said with a firm hand
    you can earn two fresh Frappuccinos in one day 
    just don’t tell anyone, especially not the General,
    children should not have so much caffeine.
    I mean your mother, don’t tell her. 

    This was a lie.

    There’s not even a sign.

    This poem was commissioned as part of the International Literature Showcase, an initiative by Writers’ Centre Norwich and the British Council to support UK writers.

    This is part of a series of work responding to the theme Crossing Borders.

    The Thing I Would Tell you, a new collection of writings on Muslim women edited by Sabrina Mahfouz, is available to pre-order via Amazon