by Maria Lisella
They call them abd, slaves.
Darker than all the rest,
lower than the Chinese
working in Libya for years.
They are trapped.
“We are somebody
and we are from somewhere.”
They camp at the airport,
on the tarmac, the Libyans step on them,
beat them, whipping dogs.
“Tell someone, we are dying.”
Maria Lisella's Pushcart Poetry Prize-nominated work appears in Amore on Hope Street and Two Naked Feet. She co-curates the Italian American Writers Association literary readings and has been a travel writer for the past 25 years.
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