TAL #424: Kid Politics.

his speech
shudders down my spine,
sleeps in my neck,
constructs dreams
in the marrow of my
bones; birthing fictional
characters
in the space between
vertebrates who
play, kids in
motion, clinking tendons
together like high heels
on marble.

his words are like the fourth
of july: full of history,
fireworks, hot
dogs and laughing
children
that echo through
the shadows in
my skeleton-

just bones, muscle, and
eyes
i am, a
capsule of miles
a metered stick
passing his fourth
of july on slushy january
days like it's a sign
post to see,
to sprint towards,
to marvel in
its concise language,
stop. yield. children playing.

out here we are linguistic
imperfectionists. we adhere strictly
to the literary law of the street: where
beating hearts, beating feet,
beating minds, beating that
walker in an over-sized blue parka
rule like miniature kings
on top of snowbank castles.

out here we speak
in words not sentences,
we sing of fire in our feet
not the sky,
our drumtaps tell the
small epic tale of
our footsteps, not
a children's march
towards
death and freedom.

out here our thoughts
are dreams and our dreams
are thoughts and we slip on words and
ice, like small children
playing tag on frozen playgrounds
because how can you ever
really know who's it?

dls