Enter
By blighters rock
- 2503 reads
Enter
Enter
You are going on holiday
Don’t look at her
Or anyone else
You’re only making it worse for yourself
Step forward
Look at my eyes
Now look down
Grab your bucket
Take off your shoes
Jacket and belt
Grimace all you like
Put your toiletries in this bag
Close the bag
Give the bag back
Put it on the conveyor belt
Look down
Cameras are watching
Approach the walk through
Be waved into it
Stop afterwards
Pat yourself on the back
Look sheepish
No buzz
Proceed
A woman puts you to one side
Asks you to hold your arms aloft
Your husband takes your baby
from you
you are prodded and poked
moved and shaken
turned
your baby is appalled
a noise resounds
at the next kiosk
a look says don’t move
and the husband freezes
The baby starts to cry
uncontrollably shaking
he thinks his mother is leaving
forever
she walks away
to gather her belongings
her son’s eyes filled with rage
following her every move
The husband and baby
Approach the sensor
and it sounds
The baby tightens in his father’s arms
Strangeholds his neck
As he quietly comes to terms
With the trauma
The husband says shush
As he passes his baby back to mother
He is frisked
Shoved
turned
Making fun eyes with his child
As he goes
blubbering
And then they walk away
The baby shivers
As mother consoles
The father is asked
from where he came
and he tells them
His father has just died
He’s finally
Said goodbye
laid him to rest
and now
the family is returning to America
One of the men in black
asks if he can swab the buggy
and he says yes
The baby yells
afraid
a detector is wafted over his nappy
just to make sure
to get him on his way
a little pat
People have been watching
but it’s nothing
just a man and a baby
and a woman
being treated like Jews trying
to leave France in 1940
If only they knew they would be
contained
kept
as trophies to the boys
from the big house.
The man and the baby and the woman don’t
realise what’s just happened
They move along
Shaken
Violated
Disturbed
And then
Out of the blue
they say
‘thank you’.
The family opposite
Waiting to be brought forward
Who have laughed at their plight
Are now the subject of an alarm
This new family are taken
hurriedly
To one side and
There are a few little laughs
But then the tone lowers
and
The man, the woman and the baby sigh
And snigger slightly
And look incredulously
At each other
As if they’d survived something
And then they walk away
nervously
Thankful that it wasn’t them.
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Comments
This effectively conveys the
This effectively conveys the tension, paranoia and general unpleasantness of airport security. You've travelled to even more places than I have, but I've always found entering the USA has always been particularly unpleasant. In fact, the last time I left the states my companion had his trainers confiscated for a couple of hours, while they were checked for 'substances'. Just a couple of things: I'm not sure a baby would be appalled - it seems too grown up a reaction. "Strangeholds" - stranglehold? Well done, I liked the comparison to the Jews leaving France during WW2. You might like to read Naomi Wolf's article Fascist America in Ten Steps http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment the film, The End of America, is also excellent.
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I quite like the idea of the
I quite like the idea of the baby being appalled - it describes and brings to mind the expression on a baby's face when someone else touches the woman that belongs only to him, or when she hands him over to someone else. As you say you are still working on this, I'd love to see the finished poem once it has been trimmed a little. It's an original story, told in great detail. That word - 'violated' is appropriate to the ordeal. Liked the way they changed attitude once they were off the hook and it was someone else's turn -
'As if they’d survived something
And then they walk away
nervously
Thankful that it wasn’t them.'
Good story.
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