Documents

if you really want to know
how it felt
to live through
the ache of a decade
or the pulse of a movement,
don’t open a textbook.

read the poets.

we’ll tell you
what the people hummed
while boarding the bus
to go downtown,

what the sky looked like
when the city caught fire,

how grief can stretch
its fingers
into everything,

what a tear feels like
when it leaves the body.

we’ll give you
the temperature of a protest,

the anger unheard,

the names
that weren’t spoken.

history books
count wars,
not the weeping.

poetry counts
the breath.