Paper Bags as Self-Reflection
2023, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
& after many lives — you kneel before
vast water as sacrifice, the beach unclean
& humid — you nameless as a newborn
while we waited for the first shriek and it
was your hands tucked in the sand, what
can fingers filled with other people’s debris
not hold with almost utmost perfection?
I live one border away
& I want to watch you everyday
run into self reflection to weave
things that do not want
strangers alive into coloured
paper bags.
The ocean is shattered glass
for those who like themselves best
— contorted
& after many lives — the people do not
know your name but they hold you as silence
never to be given space. what
happens to learning your name in my mother
tongue, holding it as vacant white paper &
homage to ink, what happens to the rhythm
of unsaid words?
What happens to all of us still
stuck beneath your fingernails?