Sugar Cane Fields Were Never Sweet

Sugar Cane Fields Were Never Sweet by Khari D. Hawke Stitched lips scream to me  Crystallized blood drops  Cradled beneath sagging shoulders  I pick them  One by one  Between threads  That tie  Both hands  And tongue  Only I hear these cries.  Sown mouths  Recite  litanies of uncertainties  The sun doesn’t set  On the ache in  These bones  What to say to he who offers tales  Of times when his tongue  didn’t twist and trash  On his lap?  I cannot cry  Who lends me tears for those  Who speak and speak  But own no voice?  Who whisper  In the sugar cane fields  facts of severed hands  Burnt feet  Gouged eyes  And lips  Who drink  The needles gifts  With hope?  Only I hear  As they shuffle home  Wailing  The suppression  ...One by one...  The agonizing reality  is exhaled  Like thread through the needles eye.