This piece was an experiment with meters and rhyming schemes.
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hours staring
out the window, open fields and groves, with
phone to ear, wide eyes, hot tears, to witness
children grieving, jailers moved to laughter,
infants reaching, christians hail to caesar
through the windshield, driving, morning planned,
grabbed the backpacks, jackets, coffee, hand to
chest, all knots, and tabled thoughts have volume
toward the cages, mothers, cellmates, elders
at the ceiling, in darkness, inside
crib within reach, inside
sleep out of reach, inside
curves flatten on the inside
thoughts shriek on the inside
on the corner
on the zoom call
on the swingset
on the sunrise
on the sunset
for one brief time, won peace, won stillness, breath,
a reckoning long overdue, then signs
of “back to business” scrawled, and truth displaced
as fish tossed back to lakes, not to the hungry
now we stare again.
again, at gold, and “trickle down”
again, at no rules for the crown
again, at Minnesota strong
again, at liberty for none
again, rise up, the children pray
again, rise up, the workers say
we strum the songs that kill the fascists,
speak our love in gentle spanish,
gather fruit and make our table wide,
wide,
open.
we stare again, dear heart.
we mount again, dear heart.