Memorial Day
In which I appropriate Memorial Day for the unwillingly sacrificed
DECLARATION
In memoriam:
Our sleep
Our easy breath
Our painless body
Our clear, sharp mind
Our settled heart
Our-
In memoriam:
Our peace
Our birthright
Our indigenous lands
Our sacred ancestral mysteries
In memoriam,
life, again
EXPOSITION
Our shared experience
recommend us as comrades.
We battle daily.
Pieces of us transform,
slough off, lost or
subsumed.
We may harden, become dull,
become blunt, become so
afraid, live in perpetual
apprehension, become ill, be
unable to resource ourselves
In memoriam of those pieces of us,
lay flowers where they fell
where the ghost lingers
PRAXIS
By the time you are in
memoriam, you are already
composted. What was once a part of you
is already in the ground.
Who will eat from your fertile
body? How do you ensure it is
you who consumes yourself.
You, most of all.
How do you stop a carrion eater.
How do you protect your
composting body from violation.
The memory of all of who you were
lives on in the collective that
witnessed you. But in you,
most of all.
Remember me before the scalpel
of capitalism cut away that piece, before
the psychology of our being
a living politic narrowed the path
between heart and hand.
