Let us dip our hands into the soft womb of earth

to retrieve what has long been buried—

hearts, keys, the television remote,

weather-warmed discs of beach glass

like tiny pieces of a cathedral window.

Let us bow our heads for all the times

we have tasted blood in the back of our throats,

times we have bitten our tongues clean through

in an effort to stay silent as men in white robes

feed us the salty brine of someone else’s words.

Let us dig up the graves at daybreak—

let us loose the ghosts of our former selves.

Let us be loud, loud, loud in the face of those

who would render us mute as sacrificial lambs.

Let us rattle the chains that shackle us

to the wrists of our enslavers.

Let us give voice to the passions that drive us—

let us scream, “hear this now,” as the great chorus

of our souls takes wing into the reckless wheel of night.