Qatar 2022
I.
Lachrymatorium
The lachrymatory at Lusail will not hold
all the tears of the mothers children and wives
of the sixteen thousand and twenty one who lost their lives
As they fell down the scaffold
Or had their skulls crushed by falling concrete
in forty five degrees of heat!
II
Horror and Delight
The howls of horror
and the screams of despair
of the loved ones of the sixteen thousand and twenty one_
they came from Chittagong to Kerala
they came from Multan to Manila
from Bamako, from Nigeria _
when they begin to understand
that their loved ones are no more
will mix with the roars of delight
as Messi or Mbappé opens the score
on cup final night
III
The PR man
But let the man explain:
it’s not a lie he says, that people die on building sites
they die in cancer wards in the night,
they die in car accidents
they starve to death in refugee tents,
people will die of wounds, stabbed with a knife
death, after all, is a way of life
