You come for faraway exotic lands
Black in wooden crates
Made in Third World
Like a chained slave waiting for a buyer
In the new colonies discovered long ago
We buy you in a tin box
Never wondering how you were picked
Whether you grow on a tree like an apple
Or sprouting from the ground like a plant
Not caring how the pickers walk
When death follows them like an agent
For us, you simply grow in box
We exchange you for two yards of synthetics
For a crate of bullets and two guns
So the plantation guard can watch owner
the pickers inside the barbed fence
And the dream of the owner under the palm tree
You come to unit us at 5 pm
(or 17:00 as the TV announcers say)
We gather around the teapot
That sing a song finer than the cricket’s
You pass through our dentures
Together with our worm-eaten words
You make our tongue twice as thick
Rendering us unable to even whistle
The tune of the victorious song
“I Hold a Tea Leaf in My Mouth”
That tops the radio charts
We collect the lovely boxes of tea
We even raise them to the level of pop-art
Somewhere far away, if the picker’s children
Get their hands on them
They keep them as music boxes
EN 
MK