And the morning was color and thunder, ice cream and green leaves, your head in your neck, in your hands, tears that squeeze out of your eyelids. And the morning was for lovers, and the earth refuses the cynicism of nationalists. It was molten silver and loneliness in peace parades, paradises in palliative centers. Stretch me onto your canvas and paint me in the words of your ancestors. They will wait for better times, hide in caves, bushes and creeks, crests and clouds, alleys and raindrops, hide and wait. They will come out when our hate finally chokes on its own bondage. Animals alike, they never forget.

Always and forever, eternal even, the morning will dawn in red and blood. Every day of every month we will calibrate, and our hands will unite, for the gods have forgotten to listen to our prayers. The morning’s song resides in our skin and bedsheets. One day you will run with your hands behind you, with your face full of rain and grass tickling your hairy legs; one day you will fall, and another day you will cry. One day you will scream into the blue, and another day you will find the color and thunder in every sunrise.