An Only Child.

i.m. 18yo Zhao Liu Tao murdered by racist in Dublin in January 2002.

I had my grandfather’s mouth.

In famine he was told to thrive on hunger.

He wouldn’t swallow it.

They cut his tongue  out.

I had my father’s eyebrows.

They arced like blackbird’s wings

and nearly touched across his brow.

He kept his head down.

I had my mother’s lips.

She sang true songs of long ago.

Now my lips are blue,

she sews her’s up in grief.

I was last in a line,

shouldering well the hope of many.

I was an only child,

bearer of a name’s eternity.

When they burst my skull with an iron bar

they murdered so well, so often.

They killed my father, my mother

and all before and after for ever and ever.

Like a stream vanished in a drought

we are gone to a place without laughter,

a place without children,

a place of endless silence.

When I came here only

wanting to open my  mouth,

when I came here

only wanting to learn how to speak.