the boy grew to bear size   

grizzly and standing

at attention until he

became nothing

less than a mountain

casting a shadow dark

on all sides and city-

shrouding no different

than the shadows

doubts cast reasonable

enough to weld key

locks so tight they

forget the affliction

of openness just

like the boy growing

and gaping his lips

until their clean split

too shadowed songs of

I am hungry but not for

food or time just

bullets yes bullets

I swear I watched the

boy swallow each one

by one by one by one

until they too sought

freedom in shadows

bouncing against teeth

backs to clamor like

protest feet or breathing

drums now muted and

brackish from summers’

bang bang bang bang

until this very moment

too became a symphony

of ten little tiny bullets

not bouncing but

trembling on his patient

tongue and waiting for an

open throat or songs even

but no thing came and

I thought what if he too is

just a peach treeless

but not dried or crusted

not a boy just a peach

pitted against my world

and thinking me less than

fuzz sprouting from his

rind to make known my

life because after all

it is not important

where his hands were

the only matter worth

swallowing whole was

that this boy was

not just alive but

living fast and out

loud and growing like

voices filling streets

and melting into one

hymnal hum so yes

I watched the mountain

fall like a child

uncradled and forgetting

to run and thought how

can every one of them

so small and Black and

sinking like bullets

escape the light?