The staff at We Write Poems came up with a glorious prompt: Civil Rights. I remembered what I saw at the Airport in Helsinki just over a fortnight ago. Well, of course, I remember the same thing happening to me just over fifteen years ago, at the Airport in Amsterdam. Utter humiliation is the expression coming to my mind. Enjoy the poem:
Who will wear those big shoes?
We are all lined up
In front of the check-in
So early one morning
All freezing and dumb
–
Hand luggage is packed,
So neatly and
All bags are arranged in decorum,
Waiting
–
Almost there
Just a family before me
Just a step from the free zone
With heating, coffee and soft seats.
–
I see a mother transfer diapers
from suitcase
on the verge of breaking open
to a bunch they surely
call “hand luggage”;
baby’s milk dripping from a bottle on the floor,
little boy clinging to dad
Dad running fingers through
thinning coal-black hair
speaking curtly in a
language I do not recognize
No doubt urging mommy
to hurry
–
Next at check-in desk,
They are ready –
All piles piled in order
So to speak, acceptable
Until the officer spots
their passports.
–
Half an hour later
everybody is still there
except for the check-in officer
who comes and goes away,
“To make some checks,” she says,
“Because there might be problems
With your visas.”
She’s eyeing them from top to toe.
And asking them if they’d come back
And when, and how
And why.
–
Oh, most important, why?
–
The father speaks but little English
The mother is so dumb and numb
The boy spills from his bottle
Then sits over it
And she pretends she
Doesn’t notice
That lump in her throat is
the one of despair
and humiliation
she’s not wanted there,
she’s a wrong nation.
–
And no one needs English to guess
that a passport defines you as human
or else.
© 2012 Mariya Koleva