Built block by block a vacancy windowless and piercing straight through my soul a shiver delivered to the tip of my bone In wind and whispering dark, they settle, they come cauterized relations warehoused growing old The base of your knuckle fused, abandoned long ago the hand that fed you, crippled and stoned Sacred sites, sacred burials blessed to wield the weight gone by the East, gone by the West relations severed to heed, to warn to love lost, in land lost locked down scorned You stand silent to block out the sun rolling inward, frigid, you mourn the cold heart frozen, a fortress built in regret. I taste your bitter bite on my tongue, my lips speak in languages unsung And, now you stand alone, you cinder block by cinder block a vacant piercing monument of cement and stone.
©Jay Mora-Shihadeh
Photo by Eliane Zimmermann on Unsplash
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