of graffiti painted over

corn on coal
a union forged at the tips,
A resting place
for those disobedient wordsmiths, wording

a forever engraved fleshwound
bought at the cost of tracing invisible paint,

chasing concrete walls with bare skin;
Not:
fingers chipping away on their own,
But permitted:
to be pecked away in disregard
for the pain, for a cause.

Friction-bites from a voice
at odds with the concrete;

Friction bites-back both sides
And when the finger is gone,

under the new plaster,
you can still read the writing on the wall;

A glittering menace,
blinding mirror up in the face,
Cost to state infractions calculated
and paid in exchange for onset of a social phenomena,
of public conjecture on morality of paint, of the wall;

of realization and commentary, of
somebody’s fool's errand, someone's life purpose
of denial or acquiescence
of the pain and its cause.

Child in the arms.