Some days there are no problems.
Others, becoming more the frequent,
I feel as safe as Anne Frank in
A china shop.

It's never good fun.
But it doesn't have to be this way.

Either the seekers' rubber boots
Squeak up on me
Or I fling myself against the
Floodlit brick wall.
I've dreamed it a thousand ways.
What new can they do?
Their gas and their bullets, and
Their tire irons across my cheek
Cannot hurt me, a fool
Who has no fear of death,
As every day Death walks beside
And casts a grey lens to filter
What I can see.

If I am caught
If I am found out
And if their hands, their hands, their hands
Pull at me until I am We,
I hope the rendered halves
Push forth that warm light we like to hear about
In place of a deluge.
A light
To burst forth doors
And save the ones who perch like finches
Daring never fly.

I might hope only to become a hand.
A hand in which to step
And to be clasped
And in that clasp be free.
For all the men and women and
For all the in-between as well.
I wish that I could give that to you.
To rip away from your grey rags,
Your stars and triangles,
And in the persiflage of silence
Break the gates and cells
With my limp wrists.

Throw stones until my blood be upon me.
Mother.
Father.
Sons and lovers.
Break my mouth and put my eyes away.
Let, though, my skin go last
As a radial, red calyx.
I. We. All.
I wish to be the last to see the sun.

To be at last
And to be me.