February

I have felt the deepening edge of days
and their companion nights falling in step

On the radio, we heard the voices of thirteen soldiers
before they paid with their lives for refusing to surrender

Everything I’ve looked at since yesterday has been through
the idea of a fistful of seeds buried deep in a pocket

We too will lie down and wherever we are, bodies
could turn into flowers without need of permission

Names are so beautiful said in their first tongues
Everywhere, their sounds fill shelters and trains

They should be heard like bells or prayers,
outside in a square filled with sunlight and trees