If you can

If you must

Drink from this cup

Without dying

Without speaking

With a different accent

Without speaking

Of other things

Other lives

Your life for instance


Then you can

Then you must

Walk among us

Without fear

Of the apostate

That nod of the head

That short suppressed laugh

That quick glance of recognition

In some other’s shaded eye

Before looking again at the ground

Lest you expose some other

Thought some other 

Older deeper truth

That is yours alone

(October 10, 2023)

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