It was beautiful at first.
The cameras couldn’t stop looking at him.
The grace of the guy. And he was kind.
When the refugees arrived he was right there
at the airport to greet them. No one noticed,
not even him, the black speck
at the corner of his smile.
It began to spread, creeping across his lips
like an oil-bled kiss. He tried to wipe it off
before appearances, but one day opened his mouth
to teeth stained brown with bitumen,
a black liquid pooling under his tongue.
He tried to speak but instead made the gurgle
of an orca’s blowhole filling with tar.
He raised his hands to say something else
but his arms became heron wings dripping crude.
He looked desperately for a Canadian flag
but in front of it was a little girl with a questioning face.
He looked out the window for the sky
but it was grey and hazy from the burning forests.
“I am doing what I have to!”
he shouted to no one in particular
for the rest of his life.
Rob Lewis is a poet, activist, house painter and musician who lives in Bellingham, WA. His writings have been published in Dark Mountain, Manzanita, The Atlanta Review, Southern Review and others. As owner of Earth Craft Painting he also works to revive the use of local wild clays to paint our work and living spaces.
