Dreamers

Dreamers, before they lived a life of shadows,
a short life but long years of chasing fear,
before they found a room, sunblinds on windows,
an L-shaped desk, a home they know is here,

were children young as – most commonly – three,
with fringes, hairslides, hair too soft to hold them,
two hundred words in their vocabulary
and shapes of sentences in which to mould them:

sentence shapes like cradles for dolls to dream in,
like railway tracks and bridges, tunnels, sidings,
paradigms for journeys, returns and crossings,

first languages, half-formed, dropped at a border
Dreamers crossed and were too young to remember –
these students, immigrants, these young men and women.