Lift

for Akilah

dear Akilah, there are intermissions
with ruminators who echo in the halls
here, to greet the ancestors with smoke
and pour one out along telephone
lines that hang in the mouths of
kamboucha tea mother cult artists
who function in cups with head shop cards
that tell our fortunes with oversized shirts
who leave themselves in mill workers homes
and aspire to be resistors on our altars
moved to tears as we speak holding and love
for the journeys from isolationist states
to our sons and forbearers thusly in congress
where we light candles, all hail, peace, in solace