When they came for the silence of our sacred
hiding weapons behind badges, the guards
by way of greeting, shouted Speed! planting flags
in the flesh of our flesh
When I passed, I saw where you had waited
beneath those windows, hunted bodies, and our light
along those points of fracture where it shattered
before cracks from our seeming solids in the dark
went –––where everywhere we look
there we are in pieces––
Palms behind us, trembling–––shadows across carpet
past our feet and the racket of the voices absorbing
those parties of projections, leaking to and from.
And after the cries stopped, we held our gaze.
***
Adapted from Flight Songs (2024, Finishing Line Press)
