there is a silence
i think about the way your tongue flicks
the top of your mouth at the end of my name
& spend a warm moment as a coin
slotted in the slit-mouth of a Coke machine.
see me breathe as the leaves die,
we have a limited number of these left,
so walk your hands through their hair
& listen to the sound of time
slowly taking off our skins.
i can’t tell anymore if the sound
as i try to sleep is water on the windows or
the wet patter of semi-automatics
in children’s chests.
the yellow slides behind the barricade
have hearts carved into their sides.
in my head, there is a silence :
the ring left by a glass of lemonade
at a summer funeral. when our idea
of this world ends & we sit with our faces
to the ATMs & police tanks, i wonder
which poems we will be dying for.
by George Tousaint
from Brooklyn Poets