[audioplayer file=”https://admin.rattle.com/audio/OpalekeCaricature.mp3″]
Where I came from,
the street is another religion
& my feet know
all its worship songs
by heart. It effuses a silence that arouses
the slumbering houses;
make me watch their breasts as they rise
& fall. My moment
of peace & tranquility is
when I can look the most human
behind the chromatic harmony
of car honks. Am I not a common sight, marveled
at colors; yellow grass, green trees,
red flowers? I know whatever is not black
or white begs another name. & before I got pollinated
inside this religion, I developed a new body
which blinks only once a day like the streetlamp
of a graveyard. Surrounded
by shadows, I am not as lonely as people
think. I have a skeleton dog lost to the street as I.