Those wild, pre-Brexit days
after Josephine Corcoran
Do you remember those wild, pre-Brexit days
when immigrants filled our seas with their bodies,
floated death onto our beaches
forced us to see images of dead immigrant children
while we were eating our cereal and drinking our tea?
And a man couldn’t take a shit in his own toilet
without finding an immigrant squatting over the bowl
and when he went to work the immigrants had run off with his job
and when immigrants crawled out of gutters
and when immigrants crawled out of the seas
Do you remember those wild, pre-Brexit days
when the immigrants killed our language
how when a man walked down his own street,
it was like living in Syria, or Poland or some godforsaken place,
and a man had to listen to them chattering like monkeys
and when he went to the corner shop
the immigrants had bought all the white sliced
and immigrants owned the shop, too!
And when he went to the job centre they’d run off with his benefits.
And when immigrants crawled out of gutters
and when immigrants crawled out of the seas
Do you remember those wild, pre-Brexit days
when immigrants stole all our women
and when a man tried to make love to his own wife
an immigrant had climbed into his bed,
slid between his cotton sheets
and was running his immigrant hands
all over her English rose skin
and a man had to watch while the immigrant took her –
while he whispered sweet nothings in foreign!
And when a man went downstairs to make tea
an immigrant poured himself out of the kettle.
And immigrants crawled out of the gutters.
And immigrants crawled out of the seas.
Louisa Adjoa Parker is a writer of English/Ghanaian heritage. Her poetry collection, Salt-sweat and Tears, and pamphlet, Blinking in the Light, are published by Cinnamon Press. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Bare Fiction; Envoi; and Wasafiri. www.louisaadjoaparker.com