Things That Run
by Simone Reid
In memory of Tyre Nichols
but wouldn’t you have run?
you nerves of steel, you might
not survive in the jungle. your
belly might run full with hunger,
might run dead. the river would
run dry if it hadn’t the sense
to keep running, to empty
stump-legged into the Atlantic.
you might be a clock stopped stark
by the needle of midnight—you
might be a sinus struck sick
an engine clogged with grease
you might be the drought
at the faucet, no longer leak dripping
through the night, left running,
some place, anywhere but here.
don’t tell me you wouldn’t have run,
you wouldn’t run to the world
if it meant living.