PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS

Something scurries with the deliberateness
of an online falsehood. Its tail

has been mistaken for one
of the city's fraying wires, its head

a whiskered pane of misinformation.
Committees handpicked for caging have

not only returned empty-handed,
but with their voices unstrung like voices

picked apart by wind. So it is instead
decided that witnesses be interrogated,

how they've come into contact
during solitary walks in the park

or reading by the fractured
moonlight of a grated window.

The accounts have all been the same—it is
what we seem to know but do not remember,

furred with doubt, eyes that gleam
like unanswerable questions, just

about the size of any word
darting back into the crowd.

 

PINK DOT

This line forced to stretch within its own circle.
This line a smirk where the narrow path fractures.
This line thickening to a rope our hearts jump over.

This line between free speech and paid sponsorship.
This line like a sheltered walkway that floods.
This line forced to stretch within its own circle.

This line, not the ones children should scribble on.
This line underscoring each stolen kiss or embrace.
This line thickening to a rope our hearts jump over.

This line to renew its convictions for erasure.
This line prayerfully diluting to normality.
This line forced to stretch within its own circle.

This line the heat map of bodies pressed together.
This line stranded like a man without desire.
This line thickening to a rope our hearts jump over.

This line measured by the same fattened fingers.
This line only as brittle as any other.
This line forced to stretch within its own circle
by thickening to a rope our hearts jump over.