The accused
We stall,
we count packages
against the wall.
Humble play, but
these are not things.
Here are people
wrapped in brown paper,
fastened with string.
They have no faces,
anonymous and
indistinguishable. Yet
they breathe quietly,
as if too much sound
is another offence.
Each one bears a stamp,
a label handwritten,
an address we don’t
recognise. And none
of them move at all.
Who decided
they were guilty?
Did they do anything
really, or just be?
We wait now
for the postman.
He’s overdue, and
brown paper won’t last.
All the edges might
come unglued.
And we’d have to
piece them all
back together.
Again.
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, January 25, 2021
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