from Deaf Republic: 8

I look at you, Alfonso
and say

to the late
caterpillars

good morning, Senators!
this is a battle

worthy
of our weapons.

Notes:
These poems are from the unfinished manuscript Deaf Republic. This story of a pregnant woman and her husband living during an epidemic of deafness and civil unrest was found beneath the floorboards in a house in Eastern Europe. Several versions of the manuscript exist.—IK
Source: Poetry (May 2009)