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I once wrote letters to a prisoner at Guantánamo. The letters always came back / opened.
The first capturing your gaze into nowhere
the other when you covered your face with your hands
so you were not anonymous, only unseen
in 1989 you walk the main road to /
Tiananmen when the inexplicable /
hits
Why didn't I just say / people like us here / at this table / should not just talk about politics
Relying a little less on the odd language we’d been left inside / we turned back to feeling: — / more moan, more mumble.
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For National Poetry Month, sign up for our newsletter and get a digital copy of our out-of-print chapbook Poems for Political Disaster.