Small Dreams

I don’t know if what I heard while I was sleeping
Was real
Or just a dream:
My grandmother whispered in my ear,
“Your secrets are here, don’t take them
To another land.”



*

When those who resemble me cross the sea,
What becomes of them?
Nothing,
They simply die.
A wave appears, towering, thunderous:
It crashes down on their small dreams
And fills their mouths with salt.
As for those who enter
With all their papers in order,
Their arrival is fêted,
Their pictures taken near that giant,
La tour Eiffel.
But afterward
France builds rooms for them
To rot and die in.
She builds walls for them
There,
Where people die,
From heroin overdoses.
When those who resemble me cross the sea,
What becomes of them?
Nothing. They’re just beggars in clean clothes,
Addicted to everything they try:
A lightness, some spinning in the head,
And the world slackens, turns to laughter,
As the joy envelops them.
Then France drives them out
Of all her splendid spaces.
Some look for work, to no avail:
“The job would’ve been yours
If you’d come a bit sooner”
Is what they’re usually told.
And when the landlords see their faces
All the rooms for rent
Are suddenly gone.
Once a Frenchman said to me,
“Your names are strange—Koumi Saba.
Who called you that?”
“Mama France,” I replied.

Those faces, dark as coal,
What do they do
In these bleak and distant lands?
Nothing.
They listen to sickly songs
That remind them of something
And the good fathers, what do they do?
Nothing.
They listen to the chants of the dead
And fill out new forms.
And when they’re done with those,
they look for new ones.
They tell Mama France
Their wives’ bellies have swelled a little.



*

When you live in a country that does not resemble you,
Your name becomes: Those ones.
I came to Paris, but I don’t see her.
All I can see is the fog
Wrapping itself around her from all sides.