Leave a Door Open

They counted steps on the highway, lines on old concrete.

A child with a scuffed backpack tracing stars on the ceiling she'll never

keep. Radio static sings of quotas, orders pinned on weathered hands,

while someone folds a photograph and buries maps of other lands. Names become numbers

on a ledger nobody reads. Promises get smaller where the

hungry meet the feed. We are not lines on a map.

We are stories with a breath. Leave a door open for the ones

who arrive cold and tired. That is enough. Barbed wire learns the language