"Whose are you?"

WHOSE ARE YOU?

(For a Syrian refugee in the Balkans)

A boy with a schoolbag

was trampling on the grass with the morning dew

then he walked down the road

which I used to go as a boy.

Across the road

the sun melted the barracks of refugees… newly arrived

I approached and

I asked him

“Whose are you?”

Hamid

he said

after some silence.

He looked to me

like one of us

that’s why I talked to him.

He looked at me scornfully,

I apologized to him

in an unknown language.

Hamid

what you are today

Hamid

that’s what I was yesterday.

2013

Shani Pnishi