Publication Award: Learning to Cope Poetry Prize

A publication award-winner  from one of our recent contests, the Learning to Cope Poetry Prize!

How Our New Immigration Policies are Like the Bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef

... as the algae provide the coral with 90% of its energy, after expelling the algae the coral begins to starve. –Wikipedia on coral bleaching

Starvation starts the day you spit them out,

those guests you harbored, off whose strength you fed

until the times turned hard. You had some doubts

but didn’t dare show weakness. So you led

with confidence. “We don’t need them,” you said.

You drove them off; you celebrate the rout

insisting it will make us strong. Instead,

starvation starts the day you spit them out.

Just listen to the garbage that you spout

to feed the hate, whip up the fear and dread.

It’s criminal, the lies you tell about

those guests you harbored, off whose strength you fed.

We all were glad enough to eat the bread

they baked and use their labor in our drought-

struck fields. Oh yes, it’s all good fellowship ahead

until the times turned hard. You had some doubts,

I think. I could be wrong. You always shout

the loudest when you’re anxious. That inbred

team of flunkies trembled at your pout

but didn’t dare show weakness. So you led—

at least, you call it leading. Better dead

than stranded in some borderland redoubt

the wrong side of the national watershed.

And when you close that border to the south—

starvation starts.

 Tiel Aisha Ansari