I’ve never seen a town so dull 
for my town is made of Lego blocks. 
Branded heads and painted faces
and hands that grip like wrenches. 
I look outside my house and see
my dimpled green lawn has a plastic tree, 
that we’ve never climbed for we have no knees. 
And just the other day a man complained 
that he couldn’t pick his nose because 
he had no fingers or a nose to pick. 

But things are not so bad in here, 
my little town has big ideas. 
It was built by a boy who drinks his milk
and likes to read big books with pictures. 
Dilapidated roofs are fixed in a jiffy 
and the fuzz don’t change their uniforms. 
New houses are broken down 
and replaced with multicolored mansions, 
or spaceships with robots, lasers, machine 
gun turrets built from parts of old houses. 

Pirates roam the docks of Blue Bottom Lake
with hooks and patches, silent perched parrots. 
We’re stocked up on men but lack women, 
though my town is still diverse. 
Knights on horses swing swords in semicircles, 
pirate ship captains walk alongside the police in blue. 
One size fits all, 
so we all fit in. 
Duplo* bricks with eyes on each side
watch delinquent, full-size Duplo kids.

You can tell by the smile on my face, 
nothing’s going to change, 
I’ll keep walking, lock-step, 
and my town will remain the same.  

*Duplo is a form of Lego for little kids - some blocks have eyes on each side. 

— Obaid Khawaja

Eye On Life Poetry Contest 2010-2011 Honorable Mention