to speak honestly without fear
to slough off misunderstandings
to take a hammer to one’s beliefs
like a statue’s plaster casts shattered
across the sculptor’s studio floor
to be a broom to this disaster
to refuse the language that’s offered
to stand naked in the storm
to scream one’s name back
to change the sounds around us
and any one else who dares
to define us in their words
that is the task of the poet
to exculpate the shreds of language
and make them whole again
(February 7, 2015)
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