Up and Scatter
The couple at the end of the headlights
has had who they’ve made taken away
after only a few words spoken in the open air
between them and the mountains that hide the city
where the newly completed school will open its halls
and one child will be confused with another
until so little is known about each that you’d only guess
at the kind of person being developed year after year
someplace else where the songs are only
that there was once a song that kept people from guessing
when in the middle of the night soaked in sweat
they’d wake to darkness sure of nothing
except that they wished they’d waited why did they not
wait and wait at the end of the headlights.
Eric Garner
The boy who looked unlike the other boys
was given a name that sounded like the names of the other boys
but would not be able to make others remember it
because he wouldn’t be seen as a boy for as long as the others
whose names would stay with them into manhood
as they remembered less and less about being boys
until they no longer recognized the names of anyone,
even when the unlike boy who had also reached manhood
said his, out loud, on a city street to them so they’d know he’d been a boy
as well, and so was now a man like them and appeared that way
to all who watched as they forced his last breath from his body
though the appearance was not enough to halt the traffic
on the city street where he lay while his name found him again
and you found his name.
Page created on 3/19/2022 6:40:59 PM
Last edited 3/21/2022 12:54:06 AM
