we’re building statues out of poems
we’re building bonfires out of white papers
we sold by bills, and penned in by bills
and governed by decrees, and bought by donations
and fooled by x marks the spot
there is treasure beneath the democratic symbol of your mark

we’re building futures out of death certificates
glued together by blood
that seeps from victims for those who deal in abstracts
those who live by compacts and contracts
and wave flags and do not step into another’s shoes

but we can build futures out of poems
and we can burn down straw men with our poems
and we can kill ideas with our poems
and we can turn to stone with our medusa gaze
those that are trapped in older ways
and are already stone
but for whom it’s a state they do not own

with poems we’re building our home
with poems we have spirit to loan
our poems are something to own
to carry forward past our sink into loam
we can how like Ginsberg
we can sing like Trudell
we can testify like Soyinka
we can come like Sexton to the table
with our poetry armour like Plath
with our insight like Atwood

we are building an escape route with our poetry