What does the world
look like?
Like baby Amina,
who holds the phone
in one hand and slaps a place
between her forehead and ear with the other
and listens to me talk and talk
and makes a sense of it
that actively escapes me,
and she includes me anyway.
What does the world
look like?
The way you paint a picture
of the Van Gogh-smeared women
at the beach, your husband dying comfortably,
head in your lap to remind you of the love
that includes you anyway.
What does the world
look like?
Like the boy who is so much a man
that you know now he will leave
exactly as he should, and long before
you have forgotten his weight in your arms.
Leaves sooner than you wish,
but he takes your measure anyway.
What does the world
look like?
The way it did the day we built the fence
around the home of the woman
wishing to stay safe,
around the woman who we together
briefly loved and laid to an extra day
without despair and a longer moment
that includes us anyway.
Whatever does the world look like?
Like the green street that is my home
and the tall trees shading neighbors
and helping them to cross the shifting line
that separates them from me
until the moment of my need,
when they include me anyway.
Whatever does the world look like?
The way our heroes give what they have got,
and call on us for more
to make the point that heroes
come in groups of us
whenever we are willing,
including all the unincluded.
Whatever does the world look like?
Like the winding path you go,
bare and beautiful legs propelling,
your work ahead, the inhuman size
and shape of it, and all the coaxing and caressing
to include the
unincluded.
Whatever does the world look like?
The rest stop on the peaceful stretch of moral arc,
where we can dip our brushes
in the deepening hues of struggle and of conflict,
the message to include all of the excluded.
What does the world
look like to the baby
who has flung a kiss
so hard and far that we will spend
a lifetime happily trying to catch up?
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