and the red flees for the sea
and the corner with its back against the
pockmarked wall cries out to the coroner
in the hall, there’s a dead girl in my arms,
whose singing was her glory and her charm.
and the sleuth asked, which way, of the door
that swung both ways against the uproar
of the furniture tearing up the floor, in
protest against the dead, against the pale
grey and the color of lead and the red that
flees for the sea, and the girl’s wounded lover,
the two no longer turning in their mutual
yearning, for one is dead and the other dying,
dead and dying on account of a
country they knew nothing about.
which way did their young hopes go
devoid now of the red, what sort of dread
did they know, which dreams did they let go?
an open and shut case, said the door to
the hall, said the wall to the floor, said the
grieving mothers to the earth, whispering, to
hold them where no government can touch
them, exiles from themselves.
In cities of the dust neither bullet nor
ballot matters, nor muezzin call, for
in the democracy of the grave
can they now being full citizens
raise the flag of their love
even as the red flees forever for the sea
