for Aung San Suu Kyi

Blessed are those who watched
with stormcloud eyes
the ground open to swallow them
while fork-tongue drivers
drove whipcrack highways
on luxury serpents. Blessed
are those run down & flattened
fang-holed & spat on
for good measure of the trade index.
Blessed, those daughters set on high wires
to balance dollar signs, while bored crowds
jeered for another fall in interest rates. Blessed
too those with empty chests, soles ripped
from their shoes, fed to dogs. But most blessed
are those who stole the hound scraps
nailed them to their feet
& kept on marching.

– Paul Mitchell