No poems on those days a new
Name takes charge and most of us
Breathe deep. In. Out. Sighs of grief
Some years, like this one, like these.
We say us. We spell it out.
Count us by our polls. We’re vast.
We might as well be the whole
Race of those who use two feet
To move, to have moved the Earth.
Let’s say we are a stand-in,
Like we like to think we are,
Let’s say our poems on these days,
Full of us, ours, and the land’s,
Bound to voice some hopes, some doubts,
Some need to feel the great weight
Of all this blood like a lake
Sunk in our veins. You . . . Us . . . They.
