Bloom Below

The Bloom Below No one is asking you to believe. Not yet. Just sit down. Let the mud take the weight off. We have water enough for the patient. We have names enough for the lost. He had a voice like damp walls And hands that stayed too still Said the dead were only resting Underneath the anchor store Said the roots had found the copper Said the soil had learned our names Said the ones who kept on fighting Were the ones who still felt shame We were thin from the rationing And tired of standing up He stood on the dead escalator And told us when to rest And we were tired God, we were tired Too tired to keep track Of the cost When he smiled The whole atrium got quiet Like every broken thing Wanted a boss There’s a bloom below Where the old light goes There’s a garden Under all this grief Put your face to the tile Let the black dirt know You are ready To be emptied There’s a bloom below There’s a bloom below And it grows With your teeth They took the pharmacy ads And painted over the pain Scrawled a scripture on the gates With a finger dipped in drain Pinned the children’s drawings Where the sale signs used to hang A sun in black crayon Smiling down on meat He said hunger was a doorway If you held it long enough So we gave him our watches And forgot what they were for He said the stomach Is a temple For a holy kind Of drought And the only way To fill it Is to let the world Leak out There’s a bloom below Where the old light goes There’s a garden Under all this grief Put your face to the tile Let the black dirt know You are ready To be emptied There’s a bloom below There’s a bloom below And it grows With your teeth He never raised his voice That was the weapon Never touched the iron Never showed the blade Just asked who wanted sleep Just asked who wanted purpose Just asked who missed The comfort Of being told What to survive There’s a bloom below Where the old light goes There’s a garden Under all this grief Put your face to the tile Let the black dirt know You are ready To be emptied There’s a bloom below There’s a bloom below It has roots In your knees There’s a bloom below There’s a bloom below And it eats When you speak No one is asking you to believe. Only to kneel.