How the March Ends

I had the sense of a breaking,

that the honeyed agitation of human want had

ripped worn affections from the ground,

 

as around sinewy marble

the wending grotesquerie of joyous revival

toned old songs in comic solemnity.

 

We slept through our culmination,

thinking history was woven into our bobbing mobs.

As we called out tinny slogans, shouting . . .

 

“This space is ours.”

and smiled through the crushing blow 

watched by silent hatred.

 

And all else was taken

by little boys

 

on steel shoulders .