Poetry: Ashraf AboArafe
In a country
where no spare change can be found
to return a rider’s dignity
from a split pocket
back into a palm,
the official emerges
with a face as soft
as cotton soaked in numbness,
and declares:
“We will raise the fare…
and lift your faces to the wall
so you neither see…
nor speak.”
Ladies and gentlemen,
the crisis is not in the coins
but in the idea—
when the state becomes
a bag without a bottom,
and the citizen
crumbs,
waiting for “what remains”…
that never comes.
Mersy the tea-boy…
child of muddy streets,
a nation built on a tin stove,
a cup of tea in hand,
and yet he solves
what institutions,
laws,
councils,
and brass seals
could not.
He makes currency
from plastic,
sweat,
and a broken laugh,
trying to stop the bleeding
in a pocket
torn open.
But the gentlemen
who raise numbers
like lifting shoes
to strike the poor—
invent nothing
but cold excuses
and burning figures
that scorch the citizen’s skin
each time he nears
a station of arrival.
Mr. Chairman of the Metro:
we are not tunnels
to pass through without light.
We are flesh and blood.
We pay the fare—
and sometimes the lifespan—
on sidewalks
where we are counted
as national losses.
In this land…
he who has a heart
owns no office,
and he who owns a chair
has no shame.
One final question—
not for conferences,
nor committee tables:
How can we ask the people
for understanding
when those in power
never understood them?
