Lampedusa

A lost boat, by S.M. Raza. Courtesy of ArtChowk Gallery

The hearses cut through barbed waves
and the dark.

Aboard, pilgrims imagine the horizon
and ask for angels.
They clasp books choked with prayers,
and whisper their own:
Let our breaths be sails in the cold wind
Let us outrun the manacles of birth

Restless hours drift their minds back to
fears or smuggled dreams

before currents of meditated cruelty
pull them namelessly
into a tally
across the only real frontier

~ Daniel Voskoboynik

Daniel Voskoboynik was born in London in 1994. His work has previously appeared in the Mays Anthology, Resonancias, Poetica Magazine, and elsewhere.