Saturday Poem

nextdoor app

a young man desperately buries himself under damp leaves while helicopters hunt him police laugh as he tries to hide in the foliage a neighbor with a device to eavesdrop on scanners catches this tidbit shares it with the online group crime doesn’t pay lol you think the leaves make you invisible haha meanwhile he lies on his back on the wet grass of a stranger’s yard weaving a fast and futile dwelling from the earth what does it feel like to be held this way by the whole world pressing your back dew slicking your eyebrows thinking of your mother who is putting your baby girl to sleep your second grade teacher who framed your first poem your fourth grade teacher who told you you won’t be shit your sister who followed you from room to room wanting you to play with her your two cousins shot in the same week one in the pupil another in the lung and for a moment you nearly weep but no you lie perfectly still directly in the white beam of light rivulets running from magnolia leaves down your temples into the soil.

by Shabnam Piryaei
from Split This Rock

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