Apologies
Listen
with tears carving lines down our faces
we are saying sorry
we are watching rocks fall down cliffs
we are kneeling under a cross with our sins on our sleeves
and saying sorry
we are holding hands with ghosts
standing over looming headstones
forgetting to remember
back from the scolding eyes of authorities
after praying we are saying sorry
after driving cars
down roads with forgotten names we are saying sorry
with our hands we are saying sorry
through windows and in storms and through crooked smiles
remembering the stares and the eyes like knives
and the nights with no dreaming we are saying sorry
in the stores we are saying sorry
under the feet of giants who wouldn’t challenge their equals
and the screams of those who hate themselves
we go on saying sorry
with the trees falling down around us
and our burning regrets we are saying sorry
with children dying
and more being born we are saying sorry
with the words we can’t say falling frozen on our lips
with the buildings getting higher
and the grasses getting browner
we are saying sorry faster and faster
we are saying sorry and lying
on a world made of broken bones
Judges’ Comment
The driving force of the poem is its insistence on one line worked out through various mirrors. A deft use of language and instinctive grasp of stanzas brings a degree of order to the essential panic of the concept.
This was an entry in the 2014/15 Writing & Photo Contest.
