The Refugees

In the shabby train no seat is vacant.

The child in the ripped mask

Sprawls undisturbed in the waste

Of the smashed compartment. Is their calm extravagant?

They had faces and lives like you. What was it they possessed

That they were willing to trade for this?

The dried blood sparkles along the mask

Of the child who yesterday possessed

A country welcomer than this.

Did he? All night into the waste

The train moves silently. The faces are vacant.

Have none of them found the cost extravagant?

How could they? They gave what they possessed.

Here all the purses are vacant.

And what else could satisfy the extravagant

Tears and wish of the child but this?

Impose its canceling terrible mask

On the days and faces and lives they waste?

What else are their lives but a journey to the vacant

Satisfaction of death? And the mask

They wear tonight through their waste

Is death's rehearsal. Is it really extravagant

To read in their faces: What is there we possessed

That we were unwilling to trade for this?