the first crack

the first crack

cradling the final one,
four hands fumble
for the ailing pulse,
as the coffee convoy leaves town.
the occasional dropped bean crushed
under ten tonne wheels.

they came with shark tooth smiles
and promises of open wallets,
two choices laid out dollar bill flat,
take this now,
or tomorrow, take that.

in the end, both were no more
than a cut in the price given
for the remnants of your hearth and home.
by the time you had been shackled
in the chains or fear and law,
two of your children
had died from lack of food.

laid soft in the earth
tiny lives defeated,
folded in
between the tyre tracks.
sleeping now, beneath
a flood of US cigarette ends
and C*ke cans flung from open windows.

a family of seven, now clustered
into one another as three,
two parents with exhausted eyes
and a stubborn middle child.

there is no separation under the sea,
and across the other side
of the world, sullied beans
of blood and tears are ground up
for the commuters,

slow

drip

dying

the eventual Costa lives,
bringing collapse
oh so Ner-o,
the lives of children
snapped like saplings;
extinguished Stars,
measured in’ Bucks.