Let’s say endurance is all you can do
in this violent vigil some call life,
crushed by the weight ignorance plays
& the mystery of unknowing.
How can the wick continue to burn
after the wax says stop, after the
wrinkles tell a story your mouth
was always afraid to hear? If facial
recognition & thumbprints of ink
are needed to silence their fear of us
being wrong about them being weak,
endurance is just another word for
petting the pain that remains, for
putting your hand in a mad dog’s mouth
& the tyranny ignorance plays.
***
Daniel Edward Moore lives in Washington on Whidbey Island. His poems are forthcoming in Lullwater Review, The Meadow, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Lindenwood Review, The Chaffin Journal, The Chiron Review, Adelaide Magazine, The American Journal of Poetry, Gyroscope Review and The Bitter Oleander. He is the author of ‘Boys’ (Duck Lake Books) and “Waxing the Dents” (Brick Road Poetry Press).
Armstrong Literary 