PotW: Words (For Amadou Diallo)

WORDS (FOR AMADOU DIALLO)

by Veronica Golos

Forty-one bullets--
nineteen in the soft plaster
of his body.
Their ritual marks
link the cracked wall,
the bloody palm-print;
the heavy meat
of his heart,
cooled.

Blood flooded his lungs
their sea.
of cillia, air and water
rose to his eyes.
His flesh -
the blue bitter night.

All manner of speaking fails.
The sound of guns is near.

I would run through this city shouting
beware, beware, but I'd be telling a truth
we already know.

Tell me: Did he speak in his own tongue at the end?
Implore the stunned stars,
utter the unutterable name -
fire his whole life into a single,
final, vowel?

March, 2003

from:

    3 POETS 4 PEACE

                          poems

AGAINST THE TIDE

                          of war 

[Posted in observance of October 22, the national day of protest against police murders.]