Sunday, poolside at 2:42 pm
Above, clouds drift
like slow thoughts
They go on being clouds
while elsewhere men lean over maps,
hands flat on tables, mouths tightening,
deciding how many names can be erased
before lunch.
I think of streets I will never walk,
of rooms where the lights stay on all night,
of the careful language of power—
necessary, unavoidable, strategic—
The sun warms my knees.
A palm frond clicks once in the breeze,
It feels almost sinful, this ease—
the way peace settles into the body
without permission,
and world continues
burning
I watch a cloud thin itself
into nothing
