40° 24' N , 3° 42' E

They are the tiniest capillaries of the economic crisis— they were always the smallest units of the chain.

big men who left their nowhere villages through a network of transnational agents passing them off. 

The migrant labor to the GCC countries became the great baton race of the global economy

but they are truly the voiceless, not a genocide, not a humanitarian crisis, not anything spilling over to our edge.

The poetry in their story requires a squinting of the eyes, ears to the pavement, holding in a breath

to hear the muffled lifesong left behind in the trunks of the abandoned cars at the airport, 

to feel the bodyache bad posture of the old luggage slumped on the sidewalk, 

to see the loanshark lurking behind each eye inside each man made redundant

their wishes caught in wet concrete or pacing the construction cranes like stray cats unable to climb down

these little ants unload an unfinished skyscraper off their backs, clutching a plane ticket stub as they exit

for some, globalization is a about the wait—waiting for us to recognize them in these modern wonders