To Dover from Calais
To Dover from Calais - Karen McCarthy Woolf
To Dover from Calais
After midnight we drive through Sangatte
on the outskirts, where teenagers rush to the tunnel.
In the big-cat gleam of our headlamps
the boys pause for a heartbeat— disappear in a flash.
If you’re not really a Syrian
is it safer in the Congo, or Afghanistan?
While we all fiddle with our smartphones
sniffer dogs inhale the articulated lorry.
Two ferrymen tell me how they feel
okay because they pull up the bridge and sail away.
It’s only a joke if it’s funny
so I don’t laugh at ‘they weren’t exactly invited’.
from Seasonal Disturbances (Carcanet, 2017), © Karen McCarthy Woolf 2017, used by permission of the author and publisher.