Not Yet

When my father breathed

unevenly, I, a child

breathed unevenly, I prayed

in Saint Maron

Maronite Catholic Church

for the world to change.

When I saw my father’s tears

I did not pray;

I hated our market

where the bullet

missed his heart,

I hoped the mists exhaled

by the Vale of Esk

in a country of lakes

four thousand miles away

would be mine.

That was before

Lopez whispered through his rotten teeth

behind a maze of welding guns,

“You’re colored, like me,”

before I knew

so much anger,

so much need

to avenge the holy cross

and the holy card

with its prayers for the dead,

so many words

I have no choice to say.

Years without enough to make me

stop talking—

I want it all.

I don’t want

the angel inside me, sword in hand,

to be silent.

Not yet.