If Looks
We children did not play dead we played death,
relaxing in against and tensing against in,
self- or friend-chosen, culmination slow-motion,
epic action ending with painful satisfaction.
We children lay sky staring and still
just long enough to, unconsciously,
let malice pass over us, unwittingly,
a hawk high sailing, searching for living.
Until morphing into a vulture circling,
and we children flung ourselves back to life
in order to hide again in the motion
that there is no enlightenment with no price.
Joel Minor is the Curator of Modern Literature Collection/Manuscripts at Washington University in St. Louis. He has work forthcoming in Vinyl Poetry.
