They survive their days,
And they close their nights,
With their gaze all a daze,
When they can’t stand upright.
They hunger the eyes of the world,
Rustling fingers against rusted walls,
But are hidden, and left unseen or unheard,
To forage for help when trouble calls.
The pandemic tightens, much like their fists,
In the loose embrace of the shirt wrists,
As they’re put out of work in the scorching sun,
Without shelter and shade, their bodies burn.
They wet their eyes, but never their lips,
A drop of water hardly slips.
Their kids should make paper boats,
But they’re chained to making the family stay afloat.
But no day is better than the other,
A new dawn is the last dusk’s brother.
–Savyasachi Singh, Amity International School, Noida
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