"Again on this night like the previous at Lampedusa"
By Josué Guébo
Again on this night like the previous at Lampedusa
a nondescript heart would open
its hands to the disposable people
In the scramble and howl of outrage
its hands would be overloaded
Ten centuries of brotherhood
These hands sing Esperanto
with the solemn tone of a requiem
But the hands are nothing more than desire
led astray across shipping lanes
That heart's hands have received a mission
to carry mankind's dreams across the open sea
and here distracted by seasickness
have become immobile
Copyright Credit: Josué Guébo, “Again on this night like the previous at Lampedusa” from Think of Lampedusa. Copyright © 2017 by Josué Guébo. Reprinted by permission of University of Nebraska Press.
Source: Think of Lampedusa (University of Nebraska Press, 2017)