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Migrants on the move from violence
their only possession
breath-space on a smuggler’s boat
secured with back-bent harvests 
in pretzel-bent systems
weight of crates of strawberries 
hoisted on hell-bent backs
just trying to reach Spanish-shores’-east 
from Moroccan beach with a camel-mystique
—the seaway west of Africa 
a rags-wearing-flotsam grave

migrants on the move from Cameroon 
die —or survive 
a militia-cocktail blend of balaclava terror
jihadists and bandits with morality mills low on grist
infest desert sands like scorpions
bullets sharp as cactus spines
and male instruments of rape 
piercing bones and soft tissues and psyches
instruments rejecting life   instruments injecting horror 
migrants on the move find more violence

migrants pray for food-filled days
wasteland-vultures and water-rats prey
on prayerful fearful like they’re bleating beasts
men  women and children  
herded onto a fishing vessel— a sickly casket
too small  way too small
for all the  men  women  and children
oh how hollow-eyed babies cling to milk-less mothers 
bellies stinging with hunger
eyes wringing til dry
human smugglers grinning
pockets overflowing with high tides of gold

breath-space on a smuggler’s boat their only hope
though distant shores stingy with dingy castaways–

lantern’s light tries to melt their fright
stringy muscles straining like ropes 
brined-eyes blaming the night for ambush
shark-teeth-waves gnashing the hull
maelstrom pulses swashing whitewashing vein walls
just trying to cross  just holding on  just trying to live
but the ravaging waves— waves with a savaging swing
swing the frail boat with no sail  
swing a grim-reaper-boat with a dead motor
swing a boat to fling its human cargo 
into thrashing switchblade waves
knifing the belly-light out of the lantern 
cutting rag-wearers from the boat in unholy baptize
gutting skies of far-sighted stars

desperate gasps for air 
fill spaces between slap and splash 
of brown hands on water
a child here   a baby there  
slipping from slippery maternal grasps
uglifying their faces
displaced from their breath-spaces 
by death roll of the merchant-serpent they ride
cold lips blush blue as cyanosis-seas fill sinking lungs
suspended bodies writhe in fluid ballet
til surrendering in tender mercy splendor
like fetuses curling in midnight amnion
—non-umbilical   unbiblical
migrants’ drowned-mouths-open  screaming silent

swells wear a tin-foil facade in morning tide  
sea-sins forgiven with christen of lavender light
on lullaby currents they ripple toward that distant island
corpses tossed and turned till ropey-muscles relaxed 
~d ~r ~i ~f ~t ~i ~n ~g ~
like unrolled unmoored ribbons of kelp   
to Spanish-shores’-east on a seraph sea
bodies populate sandflats rising up from a falling tide 

migrants on the move  even in death
reaching their final destination
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