When poets are removed,
there is no remedial course.
We read an alphabet of absence.
We are banished to concrete classrooms—
noses pressed against windows,
playground swallowed whole.
When poets fade away,
we trace a broken
braille:
our sight is felt
in the rough rub of words
subtracted.
Soon,
mute tutors of logic
grade our days;
tongues are blunt scissors,
paste,
pencil sharpener haze
for
we are deaf as adults
& dumb
is not a word we’ll say—
when poets speak again.