Let them fly

Clip the wings

The bird will never soar

The cage remains

Outside the door

Unjust in many ways

No access laid the trap

 That catches possibilities

Slaughtering potential

The money was not paid

So the gift was denied 

This story is rarely told

We never look beneath the line

Where impoverished children reside

Willing to make the sun shine

Able to fly

For these lost children I cry

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Let them fly speaks to the quiet violence of denied opportunity — revealing how poverty and exclusion do not merely limit children’s futures, but extinguish gifts, freedom and human possibility before they are allowed to rise.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.