Lost poem

The Belleville Park Pages was a print media publication in the 2010s that is no longer in circulation. They also has an online publication separate from what they published in print. This is a photo of one of my poems called How to Walk published in their print media.

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How to Walk by Jacqueline M. Pérez

a sharp ballade, written to cut my tongue,
chanted and samurai -- prayed, mantis-style --
those puffs you let escape from a mouth
wide as a delta. we walk mid-sentence,
double file and whetting notions on stones
lining our path like a dirge waiting.

a saucy burlesque, a scripture of jests,
hanging in the air between our knuckles,
our pendulums, our metronomes ticking
until snickering slips through -- at first cold,
now guttural. you make jokes out of hope.
you fishnet the hours you cannot punch.

a ruthless rhyme, whispered, untied
from jaws never silent -- you move
the distance of sentence, an adjudication
of endless complaints charged, a battery --
and my nails continue digging,
my palms growing sore from rust.

I am left to finger the frayed tassel ends,
to navigate the aisle you walked in past tense
in the shelter of a palinode unappreciated,
swirled in a memory etched in free verse.