Speaking in English

                                  I have these

voices in my blood that sang me sitting here

                                                            John Lent

You could walk along an avenue here

many places actually and there would appear

unmagically asphalt and road signs and

houses, large and small, and a store

and another (a pedestrian—“hello”) and

another (this one selling something you need

to go with the stuff the first one is selling)

and a restaurant and another,

a government office, a police station . . .

well, you get the picture

You could walk along an avenue here

unmagically and begin to peel away

its imposition, to trace the paths

of its assertion, to unearth (much like

an unearthed mass grave that had gone

unrecorded) the measures of violence

that made this avenue you walk

You could walk differently along this

incline of forgotten waterways

and smell the uprooted vegetation

notice a furtive movement here

a motion that is unmagically you.