from Whereas Statements

WHEREAS when offered an apology I watch each movement the shoulders 
                    high or folding, tilt of the head both eyes down or straight through 
                    me, I listen for cracks in knuckles or in the word choice, what is it                                
                    that I want? To feel and mind you I feel from the senses—I read 
                    each muscle, I ask the strength of the gesture to move like a poem. 
                    Expectation’s a terse arm-fold, a failing noun-thing 
                    I scold myself in the mirror for holding.  

                    Because I learn from young poets. One sends me new work spotted 
                    with salt crystals she metaphors as her tears. I feel her phrases, 
                    “I say,” and “Understand me,” and “I wonder.”  

                    Pages are cavernous places, white at entrance, black in absorption. 
                    Echo.  

                    If I’m transformed by language, I am often 
                    crouched in footnote or blazing in title. 
                    Where in the body do I begin;





Layli Long Soldier, [“Whereas when offered...”] from Whereas. Copyright © 2017 by Layli Long Soldier. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.