OUTRO (Exclamation Point)

Tell you something about poetry, it refuses

It breaks and asks to be broken

The broken pieces form a question mark

And this is the revolutionary poem, exclamation point

The radical belief that broken is beautiful

That breaking is essential

That revolution is built from wreckage

Exclamation comes from asking

The question is, "What use do we have for time not measured by the rivers dancing beneath us?

In us? Before us?"

We pray like this, majestic, electric

We slide, step, dip, shake, every room a dance floor

Let all my skin kin in, let sunshine in

Let me kiss on my loves chosen and fought for

Come, make you a plate

Pour some out

Return and get it

This is the thing about poems

They want to live

They remind us when we forget how to love and be love

How even leaves have veins with stories to tell

And we are the stories

We are the radical and hopeful

We are the revolutionary poem, exclamation point

You don't have to go home, but this is only the start

The good part is what comes next