Michael Simms: Black Brick, Yellow Brick

I will die in Pittsburgh on a beautiful day,
A day, I imagine, much like today.
I will die in Pittsburgh. Don’t turn away –
It will be a Monday, like today, in Spring.
 
Yes, it will be Monday because
This poem arrives on a Monday
With its rhymes all awry 
And never so much as today
Have I felt so alive.
 
Michael Simms is dead. They beat him
Because he was guilty and also, 
As you know, he was innocent.
They held him in quarantine
And beat him hard with questionnaires
 
And with rules. The witnesses
Are the beautiful Mondays,
The radiant Tuesdays,
The Wednesdays that belong 
To someone else in another town.   
 
 
 
             -- after César Vallejo
 

Copyright 2020 Michael Simms