1992

Today's prompt (Day 14) for Poem-a-Day was contributed by Catherine Lee. My attempt is below.

Photo by fcl1971

Somewhere
around the know-it-all
years, my American shoes stepped
on a midnight train to see
the countryside, except that
another side
stepped in front
of me,
demonstrating
how much I did not know,
riding a refugee train
to wherever, soiled schoolboy
with sunken lips, no school
to call his own, gripped
his mother’s dress, in search
of trinkets, souvenirs -
a warm place to sleep, hot
meals, freedom, stuck between
my instance of Europe
Through the Back
Door and their lifetime of
having no door, front
or back,
anymore.


***