Addison Namnoum and The Metaworker Editorial Staff would like to dedicate this poem to the victims of the Orlando shooting, and to their friends, families, and lovers.
This is a poem for the mothers
who will yearn after his toothy grin
and long to see sunlight touch
the top of her head again.
For lovers who stayed home
and find their beds now empty.
For fathers, who one hopes
understand: their children had
music moving in their hips,
persuasive like their love.
This is not a poem for gunshot or spatter
but the sweet, brief bond of bodies,
who house, for some time,
those people who live within them.
This is a poem of blood, yes, but
a gully of it rushing powerful and
finespun, moonshine in our gut:
Love is that exuberance,
you cannot put it out.
I will say to you. Between the breath
of their names below. Between the time
it takes to bow my head, pray to gods
I stopped believing in years ago.
If you are looking for justice,
for the place to plant your tears,
the thing to do is go into the night,
without fear, and dance.
Addison Namnoum is painter and aspiring writer living in Philadelphia. She is a graduate from College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. You can follow her writing at her blog, c-ubby.tumblr.com.
Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/saaabina/
Yes.