Whatever they promise for money, luck,
a lifetime of love, they promise empty.
They beg us cruel ways, forlorn hand
stuck at us, pathetic face, or watch us
with dead eyes through rags they hung to dry.
They have cheated the last two centuries,
have lied and are hated, have stolen from
the unorganized poor. Even pans they sell
seem made of mean tin, and their wagons
gypsy as kisses you imagine when young.
Always the necessary, dreaded ’move on’.
They never park where we might picnic,
but camp on bare ground, just off roads
where dust from traffic cakes food,
police can eye and insult them, and access
to that long road out of scorn is near.
Our accent and our rental car are signals:
Steal. Beg. Don’t feel anything. Don’t dream.
They sleep well with our money. We
are the world that will not let them weep.
for Susan Lydiatt