our tears
are the precise chemical measure

of the oceans . a saltiness we know
, but they do not see

what we always see , a middle
passage away from home

—both place
and mother tongue—and into

the gloaming , because we are
always watching

what their mouths say . always
listening , to what their hands do

. the rock salted wrongs
we are not about to forget

, what has been withheld
and granted selectively

; to not always to be
too hundred-weight burdened

to the limits of
tried-our-‘las nerve

. we heave . we gasket-seize
and blown invectives . we grieve

a Fibonacci sequenced
murmuration of a thousand wings

. we adapt a homing instinct
magnetically drawn to +’justment

. their cause enflamed our effect
. a stealth of incognito

like salt sprinkled to keep the devil at bay
. . . a sea of possibilities

the tensile shape of the human condition
, both vulnerable and complicit

, both predator and prey
. the catastrophism

of our indecisiveness , are morally
flexible , salting the dextrous trinity

of choice , chance
and circumstance—a stutter

in the billions and billions
casting outside glances (they

say whatever justifies
despising us

, like every time a fly lands
, it vomits

) , implementing human hands
to jacquard looming

a nation of hurt
. the unconscionable chaos
we see all around us
is a last chance option of mercy

, a strange angel that protects us
from however the hurt may come

. after centuries we seizure-
stagger like chipped gears after

vile epithets—been spit upon and
gunshot . the arrogant transgressions

, until we Molotov-ed
to conflagration . we copper-

boxed an armature , shattered
a cascade of exothermic sparks

, and the sun rose tremendous
. we could see nothing

but blinding light . a god-shaped hole
. . . and then , the country caught fire .