Landing at O’Hare–Chicago Skyline by Margaret Dubay Mikus, Copyright 2014
Listen to poem here: https://youtu.be/nekff0ynG9s
9/9/14
Limo Driver from O’Hare Airport
The light-skinned man from Tunisia, Africa
had been a student dissident
in the old days arrested 11 times
once kept in a cell 1 yard by 1 yard.
A leader perhaps who paid to print a paper
and distributed it one time by
putting packs on tops of lights at the soccer match
then when the first goal was scored the papers
were released by a pulled cord over the cheering crowd.
He was highly educated by his telling
and got a upper level job at a bank
for 8 years. When the government changed
he was targeted, word gotten to his mother
leave tonight or die
and he did, making his way here
to freedom.
We meet him driving the limo
from the airport. He’s married
has a 10 year-old daughter
building a life here. Now he can see
his mother, but will never go back home.
His undiminished love for the place: the first
country in the Arab Spring
he tells us proudly.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2014
From upcoming collection: Resist the Slide into Darkness by Margaret Dubay Mikus