Émigrés

[bodkin]

Émigrés

Let's have our own ethnic group
and be just a little different
from everyone else.

Let's have special words,
that show we don't belong,
and use them at times of high emotion
or when we're very tired.

Let's wear brightly coloured clothes
of slightly obsolescent cut
and put two fingers to an ear
and nod when folk we do not like
might chance to stand too near.

On Saint Trufty's day
we will, of course, eat flits
and drink too much
and get our friends
to come and sing
of things we never knew
but miss.

And this is the thing:
we talk of the old country
in deeply glowing terms
but we never will return
and though we stay a touch apart
we are not foreigners as such
we like it here a bit too much.