An Immigrants Tale

We arrived like windblown dirt, the steamer vomited us out then wallowed into a smug stillness. We migrants stood to be led somewhere, anywhere slowly we disembarked, disorganized and straggling, lingering on the dock for leadership, for welcoming hands, we were examined, passed through check points, our crumpled papers stamped with a smudged and unreadable seal. Lady liberty with her torch seemed as green now as our long seasick hopes. Cops glared at us as if we were rotting fish, a bad catch. We held hands; heads bowed ploughed through to the teaming city. The high windows, narrow passageways, the overhanging washing all were threads we understood through alien eyes. Ghettos are the same everywhere. The people were almost as poor as us, they had little to share so we found holes in the walls scrabbled and scrimped the way mice do in an empty barn. Little by little we grew wealthy others fell sick and died, a few married well. Some went to the notorious bad became powerful enough to prey on the weak - even their own. Sinners prospered just as they did in the old world, nothing original in that, we had witnessed it all before. Now we survive, thrive, lead lives of a spirited and rowdy grace, stare cops in the face, and wink as if we owned them. Generally speaking we deplore all exiles from foreign lands, we’re comfortable here and have no room for newcomers, those that are penniless and brazenly land at our very door.