Silences fill the air. The silence
of a jobless face. That of wings
as a bird flies off with a darner
in its beak, and in the mind's eye
the darner flees. Things that are silent
require colour, to feel and be seen
again; the sound an artist sees
with her hands. On this tarred road
that feeds the city of Gary, Indiana,
only burnt-out cars remain of the riot
for freedoms (that are now coming).
A silence holds the street with an afro
and its white teeth of dissidence
or innocence, depending on which side
one is. A woman hurries home
with colours of a hoopoe in a bag. Red
and dark green stalks sticking in the heat.
Sacks of potatoes and carrots at our feet.
We dance, never knowing what it is
they seek who, every time we gather,
come to disperse us, the grand silence
being of course the first time any
body was able to walk in reverse.

—from "Things that are silent", Pindrop Press, 2012

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Michael Jackson