Seven billion people,
It’s a mind-blowing number.
Human number 672
Sits opposite me on the train,
Hair the colour of pomegranate
Seeds like jewels when the light
Dances at the right angle.
She sings of poetry,
How it will change the world.
Her friend, human number 2091
Talks politics and world peace,
I imagine them at protests
Youthful fire against bitter winds.
Human number 672 pulls out
An anthology I recognise,
We exchange excited words
She tells me of her travels
Reading poetry to
Wide-eyed strangers.
My stop draws near
I exit through the doors
Onto the platform
Fingers itching, head spinning.
Letters to words to lines of poems
Heavy in my chest
Desperate to kiss the pages
To change the world
To revolutionise
Seven, billion, people.
The past does not place a
Noose around our necks,
History does not repeat itself
If human number 672 and
2091 and 76 and 812 and 108
Refuse to allow it.
By Nabeela