Enzo Silon Surin
American Testimony
i wish i could write about bees and collapsed colonies &
about a young child frolicking through fields of withered
posies in search of something whole and tender, with their
head down & crying about the promise of all that is unseen.
i wish this could be a verse about extinction and preventing
lions & other wildcats from meeting the fate of a rifle’s aim
& about how a broken tooth will always remind us of Cecil,
whose murder caused a nation to hold its head down and cry.
i wish i were writing about a beached whale or a pack of sea
lions who mistook the sand for stardust or heavenly grounds
& how a village of strangers nursed & ushered them back to
the sea—watching, arm-on-shoulder, & heads down, crying.
i wish what is written was about a rare moth that once made
a dilapidated shack its home, and how it was spared minutes
before demolition, & how it was the man who built the shack
that discovered it, and how he held his head down and cried.
instead i am writing in hope that you will care about my early
demise, enough to be moved by how often i find myself on my
knees & wailing under a dilapidated sun and how your head is
often constantly held down so you don’t ever have to see me die.
Enzo Silon Surin is a Haitian-born poet, playwright, educator, publisher and social advocate. He is the author of three collections of poetry, including When My Body Was A Clinched Fist (Black Lawrence Press, 2020), and the chapbook, A Letter of Resignation: An American Libretto (2017). He is the recipient of a Brother Thomas Fellowship from the Boston Foundation, a Denis Diderot [A-i-R] Grant as Artist-in-Residence at Chateau d’Orquevaux in France and a PEN New England Discovery Award. He teaches creative writing and literature at Bunker Hill Community College and is also Founding Editor and Publisher at Central Square Press.
