Refuge

Do you think

this is how asylum seekers feel,

surrounded by news of the dead 

daily watching the corpses handled

like butchers’ joints, 

impersonal references mere statistics

all of us secretly glad

it’s them not us, 

not today at any rate,

each poignant story is

tomorrow’s chip paper

there is no end in sight

to this fear, not yet

and we do as we’re bid, 

we are now refugees, as

we hope for better news.

*

© Graham Sherwood 04/2020