Poem: The Line

 

The Line

 

nothing hurts

like ignored, absolute proof.

 

they fight you on it.

they stuff people in those ships

even during your speech.

 

you live with their hatred,

that they want to kill you;

that you might not see children,

or old age.

 

if you disappear one dusk,

the world goes on,

full of evil and whippings,

 

and no god, no one

 

to pull your carcass out of a culvert

where it feed rats.

or out of the same seawater

sailed by those ships.

 

life 

it can be as small as the cruellest curse.

 

and yet despite it 

or because of it, you speak out,

even as the gun barrels stare.

 

you keep on.

because of what can and should be,

what must be

 

everywhere.

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Original title, "Abolitionist"

"the line," as well as the moral rubicon, can refer to the Mason-Dixon line.