The Moon, Abstracted

by clouds, becomes a symbol
for longing. From a safe distance

a poet will romanticize anything:
pale lifeless rock, hurtling through

oblivion, greedily siphoning
light. The cages, abstracted

by freedom, become a symbol
for inconvenience. This is like prison,

the woman across the aisle groans
when we’re stuck for an extra half hour

on the tarmac. As though the cells,
the shackles, the people they suffocate

and surveil, are nothing more than
symbol or simile. The bombs, abstracted

by comfort. By the snow flurrying
out the window and the steam swirling

up from the tea kettle on the stove.
The deaths, abstracted by syntax:

the children were killed. The women
were killed. The men were killed.

Subjects absent. Violence erased.
The deaths, abstracted by language.

The same language I use to make
poems, to fall in love, to chant

in the streets and share in the ritual
of grief. The same language that

murders, incarcerates, declares
bodies illegal when they refuse

submission. I want to say what really
matters, and I want to say it plain.

May every colonial regime collapse
within our lifetime. May each border

crumble into dust. From Palestine
to West Papua, from Puerto Rico

to Hawai’i, from Congo to Sudan,
from the river to the sea. May every

martyr’s memory take root in the soil
of a liberated land. May every

oppressed tongue know the taste
of water, honey, freedom, freedom.