What historic shadows do we live with?
What bricked, mortared, and hole-riddled, but still beating heart will we keep saying suffices?
What love? What?
This battered banner
These stars
Ready now, to tell true stories
Able, finally
To let go
To grow

What historic shadows do we live with?
What bricked, mortared, and hole-riddled, but still beating heart will we keep saying suffices?
What love? What?
This battered banner
These stars
Ready now, to tell true stories
Able, finally
To let go
To grow
“Why?” I ask myself
Amidst the shadows, “What now?”
“Dance lessons, for sure….”
Leave me and let me
Be lost in the shadows ‘twixt
Street lamps and sorrow
We can’t call them untrue
The shadows forever forced against concrete
Are forever a part of you
But so too, was that moment before the bleaching
When you believed in the good air against your skin
Go back again, despite that it seems you can’t
Receive what the lurking has to offer
It is an unexpected hour
Not too late
Not too early
Enough light so that we can still hear
So go back and look again
Do you see the soft shadows asking
Don’t disengage
Do you feel the air giving
Reasons to stand
Bring me long shadows
Unorchestrated, lingering glee
Wait while I watch us all exhale
Healed now from last week’s barrage
Listen with me, will you?
The fight-song building
Gather up we, the sun-spilled relief
Before we march again
If ever
I’d wished for you to hold me as I smiled
It wasn’t moments ago
The heat
The lack of regret
The slightest light filtering in
As I held then heralded my breath
It was months ago
I’d wished
If ever