What Rough Beast | Poem for October 14, 2019

Freesia McKee
Asylum Cento

Love has no borders | We Are One | Where is your <3? | Shame! |
We love you | Amor | Side with love | No Estas Solo |

Free the kids | Free the children | Keep Families United | Reunite families now | 
Stop for-Profit Prisons | Close the Camps | Stop the Torture | Don’t Look Away |

Seeking asylum is legal | Free the asylum seekers | Let my people go | 
We are better than this | No more families torn apart | Silencio Es Muerte | No More Bull |

Jailing Children | UnAmerican | Are these American family values? | Inhumane |
This is not America | One Human Family | Abolish ICE | Don’t Look Away |

Children over concentration camps | El Amor No Tiene Fronteras | Inhumane/Immoral/Illegal |
“We sleep on a cement bench.” —Boy, age 8 | Some are my age or younger |

I am an Immigrant | Jesus was a refugee | 
No ICE Raids | ICE | Chinga La Migra | Don’t Look Away |

We are better than this | Are we better than this? | When Will This End? |
Yes, I Do Fucking Care | Give the Children Back | Only monsters keep children in cages |

Never again is now | Never again is now | Never again is now | Never again is now |
The Opposite of Love is Indifference | Classrooms, Not Cages | Don’t Look Away |

 

Author’s Note: This poem is composed of protest sign slogans from the July 12th, 2019 #LightsforLiberty demonstration outside of the for-profit Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Florida. Most of the children imprisoned in Homestead have parents or sponsors awaiting their release.

Freesia McKee is the author of the chapbook How Distant the City (Headmistress Press, 2017). Her work has appeared in cream city review, The Feminist Wire, Painted Bride Quarterly, CALYX, Gertrude, So to Speak, Nimrod International Journal, Bone Bouquet, Flyway, and the Ms. Magazine Blog. Online at freesiamckee.com

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