The Carpenter of Lampedusa

Mike Bell/ January 8, 2016/ www.mikebellpoems.com/ 0 comments

Crosses fashioned
from wreckage re-found
in Lampedusa’s graveyard
of boats by Francisco Tuccio –

a carpenter –
put him up there
as a craftsman – tool-qualified
and long-suffering – calloused –
like Christ’s cheated step-dad

Taker of drift-timber remnants –
tide-piles of northerly-aimed hope boats
Finding ingrained sunk lives –
salt-scoured – gasoline fouled –
sea stunk – their drowning suffered
in holy relics

Muscat: We’re .. building a cemetery
(in).. our Mediterranean Sea –
a Maltese PM
tried to carve his own response
to migrant drownings –
This thing is broken… needs to be fixed

Tuccio – unelected – mends hope –
crosses of suffering
for all drowned –
he offers wave-crucified
ship timbers
shaped to buoy migrant survivors

 

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