His face looks like he slept
on gravel and his clothes
are stiff with dirt.
His eyes are swollen sockets,
their blur is a daily ritual
to erase the horrors
of his youth.
A concrete landscape
a maze with no exit
his ancestors couldn’t find him
if they tried.
They are morsels of history
sheathed in stories
of ravens.
I give him the change
in my pocket and wonder:
where are the ravens now?
Won’t you return
from your myths
and rescue your men?
They lay in heaps
and it is your wings
that must hoist them up
and remind them
how it feels
to stand tall again.