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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Virgil Suárez

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Voices of the Lost

Here in opaline waters, a man rises
& falls in a truck inner-tube turned
makeshift raft; this ashen menagerie

of foam, kelp, debris of countless
others who ye perished, succumbed
on the sane journey - a man alone

on vermillion waters is a sad sight,
sea birds flock overhead as if to mock
his struggle, how he left his home

in the night, his sleeping family,
this desperate act of final exits, a reflex
like any other, buoyed he prays

on the thick gulp of water - his eyes
crusty, red behind the lids, the sun
burns memories from him, cinder-
like fists in his chest - a storm rages
on the horizon, soon it’ll be done,
someone somewhere will stumble

upon his broken inner-tube washed up
with the in-coming tide, loose netting,
empty plastic bags, gland-like,

ruptured lungs, a deflated jellyfish -
in it a man’s secret history of triumph.

 

Page(s) 182

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