A night full of SARS

By: Sherif Ogundele

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Hands bloody from

paper cuts, flipping

the death register.

—

Through the target sign

bodies filter

into stars.

—

The news round up

waits till protesters

are rounded up.

—

To carry news

would be to

carry arms.

—

Where is our

Goat Head of State?

—

Don’t answer!

I think he is on

airplane mode.

—

Catch him

at the blunt end

of silence,

—

meditating a move

in classic chess,

where pieces

—

have grown roots

from waiting.

—

Save the graves,

nowhere is safe.

—

A war of psalms

against arms,

—

these beggars’ palms

don’t say Psalms for alms.

—

They “clack! clack!!”,

typing your name

into the black hole.

—

The gun is a telescope

foreseeing you as

a vanishing star.

—

But today we raise

our voices against

the rising price of freedom.

—

We drop the thunder:

exclamation mark, a gavel,

the shock of “shocks.”

—

We trace entangled

scars to where they

could only lead —

—

out of the maze,

out of the craze.