The ABCD’s of Equal Opportunities

Are you familiar with quantum entanglement?

Burdened with the belief you don’t belong because you

Choke on Arabic when a white friend loses a loved one.

Display yourself for this monitoring form that

Allows us to consider how many people

Bathed in chocolate dust when that Lindt factory malfunctioned in 2020.

Cocoa coated cars and chimneys across town.

“Dreams do come true!” someone said once.

Are you familiar with quantum entanglement?

Braided together, the split elements in a

Ceaseless long-distance relationship

Defy Einstein. Imagine, all it took was tardigrades to prove him wrong.

And we know that entwined separated entities

Boundaried by time and space

Can somehow feel what the other

Does. Like when the protestors in Iraq took out their phones

And told the military, “we are recording you.

Beware, Allah is watching”. I felt that. Or

Catching school kids’ laughter at the traffic lights. I

Don’t know how to warn them of what’s coming.

About the cold, and the anger. All so cold watching

Bloated sallow milky mouths swallow more and more

Cymru. Am byth will they snatch Welsh waters while

Distracting us, switching conversations to swathes of refugees washing

Ashore like Hokusai sea foam. Hearts as

Broken as bodies lacking life jackets

Clinging to sodden memories. The

Damp sets in when they face their first

Aggressive questioning at the Doctor’s or

Bank. They would buy bread back home if they

Could. Why not offer them a second home? Not something that

Destroys the local landscape but

A space they can care for and, insha Allah,

Breathe in. Sometimes saying Syria makes the same sound as

Cofiwch. Can you taste chocolate dust on your tongue yet?

Diolch am roi o’ch amser i ateb y cwestiynau hyn.

Hanan Issa

Bardd Cenedlaethol Cymru | National Poet of Wales

(This poem was commissioned by Arts Council of Wales to open the Imagining Our Future online festival, 20 September 2022.)