Poem: Denied

This poem about denial originally appeared in Vox Humana.

I hope it edifies and stings.

Owl

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Denied

the haunted outliers of pain,
unheard and defaced,
have learned to speak a different way,
to prowl in slips
at the end of sentences,
and breaths in caesuras.

they have their own subtle creole,
much like a thieves’ cant,
sibilant in lisps,
so deep even the speaker
doesn’t hear.

they are the rages of children
who were stabbed or burned,
or pummeled or worse,
existing now as kinks
in the mental labyrinths
of torn adults.

they have bled
from the punch of treachery,
and could never fail to recognize it again;
and so they are damned.
a threat to the castle-grey faces
and the yield in their walls.


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