“This is not a Political Poem” by Addison Namnoum

Addison Namnoum and The Metaworker Editorial Staff would like to dedicate this poem to the victims of the Orlando shooting, and to their friends, families, and lovers.


This is a poem for the mothers

who will yearn after his toothy grin

and long to see sunlight touch

the top of her head again.

For lovers who stayed home

and find their beds now empty.

For fathers, who one hopes

understand: their children had

music moving in their hips,

persuasive like their love.

This is not a poem for gunshot or spatter

but the sweet, brief bond of bodies,

who house, for some time,

those people who live within them.

This is a poem of blood, yes, but

a gully of it rushing powerful and

finespun, moonshine in our gut:

Love is that exuberance,

you cannot put it out.

I will say to you. Between the breath

of their names below. Between the time

it takes to bow my head, pray to gods

I stopped believing in years ago.

If you are looking for justice,

for the place to plant your tears,

the thing to do is go into the night,

without fear, and dance.


Addison Namnoum is painter and aspiring writer living in Philadelphia. She is a graduate from College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. You can follow her writing at her blog, c-ubby.tumblr.com.

Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/saaabina/

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