America who will Sing your Praise? To Mark G.

For M. González

I don’t work the mic. That’s for the young bards

taking up the cause of democracy

on guard for careful, detailed dreams, words,

and SPRING when all of justice is applied.

The wronged, the martyred, those silenced with pain,

the pain of being human in contact

with the underside of history. DOWN WALL

that breaks apart a people left on one

side and those scattered and policed and wracked

with violence engineered by some “human”—

is that what they call themselves? Then I say,

I am not human but a voice of LOVE

to the victims of torture. America?

America? Now, who will sing your PRAISE?

This Sonnet is a Fictional Work. Any perceived, apparent, or implied relationship to entities or persons is coincidental.