When your truth climbs out
Of you
When finally it slips out from your mouth
Escapes your throat -

If you expect
Everyone watching
This brilliantly frightening
Spectacle
To celebrate and to applaud with you-
Then rest assured, my love:
The only one your truth is
Looking for
The only sound she longs
To hear
Is your hands clapping
Your lips smiling
Your heart
Beaming

If all the world
Still plug their ears
Still shut their mouths
Still
Keep
Their
Eyes
Sealed-

YOU will not.

And clap, clap, clap
Echos the confident sound
Of your hands clapping

Echos back
From the tenement halls.