The Refugee Crisis

The tent’s been home for fourteen months, the canvas stained with rain,
Her children draw the house they lost with crayons in the lane.
A country’s just a memory pressed between her mother’s dress
And the ID card that proves she’s real, though everything says less.

The line for water starts at dawn, the line for bread at three,
The line for documents and mercy stretches to the sea.
She carries everything she owns inside a plastic sack,
And walks toward a border that keeps pushing her right back.

Nobody chooses this. Nobody wakes up wanting to be
A number on a clipboard in a camp they’ll never leave.
She sews the children’s shoes with thread she pulled from her own hem,
And tells them bedtime stories about home, as if they’ll see it again.