Helen Jones
Robert Jenrick in the Welcome Centre
He is sleek, as only the rich can be,
Oiled to slip through life,
For a frictionless rise.
He sits, like a fattened seal on a rock,
Surveys the flinty sea,
Observes the current, a track of pian,
Emotionless, his mind wiped clean.
He sees the children crouch in fragile boats,
Their fear an open wound, watches them bail,
The waves as hard as icicles piercing flesh,
Knows they escaped the ravenous mouth of war,
Took paths of pain through famine scoured lands,
Plucked wizened hands from kidnappers’ iron grasp,
Saw mothers, fathers, randomly struck down.
Sea bites like a viper and yet still they bail,
Their eyes fixed on the hope, the dream.
Of one small island’s white and welcoming shore.
He turns his gaze away, instructs the staff,
All this was done to see a cartoon mouse.
It must be stopped.
Helen Jones was born in Chester and gained degrees from UCL and Liverpool many years ago. She is now happily retired and divides her time between writing, learning Spanish and making a new garden. Poems previously in the Amethyst Review and Poetica.