Monrovia 2008 - Patiricia Jabbeh Wesley

On the side walk, patches of people
linger late.

In the day, they are like rice grains
along the roadways,

and at night,
they're wallpaper lame bodies
in the draft darkness
of the broken city.

Crowds of war returnees,
waiting for nothing,
day after day,

waiting for nothing
after refugee camp,
after their former cities
of refuge

spewed them out like dirt,
after wandering the globe.
After death’s passing,
they have returned

looking like returnees
from the dead.

The city is hot, burning like steel
with hunger.

The air used to belong to us here
one woman said,
there used to be a road
to take us back home.

Today, the road homeward is now lost
The road to Cape Palmas, filled
with dry bones.

But on the street,
a motorcade is coming.
Someone is living.
Someone is living on these bones.

---

Patiricia Jabbeh Wesley (born 1955) Liberia
Source: Poetry for Peace