YEARS OF THE BAYONETS, DAYS OF THE LOCUSTS
Libyan deserts.
August 1994.
Remember this is the silence that grows on my palms:
that when a child aspires to fly,
he is left flooded in his own conniptions—
his hunger caving in on him, year
after year. Something in my ears must be
left to waltz
to echoes, not songs. Because I am
a closed-door for whom existed only broken keys
rejected already by countless locks.
The chains on my tongue embank
a shoreline caricature of words
headed to the bottom of the ocean inside me.