In the palms of orange poppies
the fat bodies of bumblebees are in ecstasy.
I dig in dirt. I water roses
bright as brake lights.
This is all the joy
our world has left.
*
Beyond this lushness,
there are millions of screens
and on each screen the same sadness,
the same man, dying.
The breath-hold break point
is the point in which
a person
can no longer hold their breath.
If you watched the video
did you hold your breath?
When the video stopped
did you finally gasp?
*
“What god was it drove you
to rake black night
across your eyes,”
the choragus asks.
No god. No kings. Only people.
Stop, please, my eyes.
There is
too much to witness at once.
*
We heard the most beautiful line
when we watched the film
“The Farewell.”
A man says “it’s our duty to carry this
emotional burden” for their mother
who doesn’t know she has cancer.
Grief, let us uplift what we can
because what we carry
defines us—a nation
with its crimes, a family with its secret, a man
suppressed by a knee
whose breath is held as he asks
for more, the officer who,
upon hearing the request,
holds the man’s
breath
for him
past all breaking points.
