Revolución: O/H
by by Anna Mace

Started as a whisper
slowly on the plane
grew like a cloud bomb, or
scattered photograms
we couldn’t quite see
foetus-formed, magnificently
breaking on the shore, those
black speckled shells upon arrival
like underground worlds
netted light on the walls,
or were they tessellating flutebeacons
enveloped in smoke?
Corners in cafes we sat, trembling
fingers pinned to letters on books
pointing to O/H, 1959; 2017
perhaps,
we believed the sounds it scored
crusting in between lips, in the air,
in the tense of the words
we couldn’t quite share?
That thing you said, strung
like jewels cobalt-bright,
you confessed to conceal
in fists full of symbols
lost on the streets of Santa Clara,
o/h, we were lost in the night
but still, expanding moments
heighten refrain
torches of ink smudge
political curses on walls,
or neon maps in the rain,
brighten joints for the rich,
it was not ours to lose, hope
it is only for Saffron
who can build shields in signs,
while fishing for time
in furrows of brows, indigo eyes
quietly voicing nothing but light,
it is not ours to lose, life
it is just ours to find.