Tyson West
The Right to Go
The border soldiers holding hard their line
assure us stragglers we're not welcome here.
Their masters toss bouquets of platitudes
sing anthems of our right to live and leave.
We worry plastic blue tarp shanty towns,
coyotes nipping at our heels, raw fear.
I hope for shadows, drunk or drowsing guards
and courage for my family to heave
our flesh into a dream we've never seen
where once we creep past cops, the hostile mob
employs us cheap then mocks our speech and foods.
Without a right to stay our need will thieve
a sketchy hole of lawless servitudes,
cold faith sustains us in this harsh frontier.
Bio
Tyson West has published speculative fiction and poetry in free verse, form verse and haiku distilled from his mystical relationship with noxious weeds and magpies in Eastern Washington. He has no plans to quit his day job in real estate.