Unlike my brothers before me,
I pray my flight only takes
a split second, not another
gangbanger, grandmother,
neighbor, first grader.
If, mouth placed to temple,
I could jam, flood the chamber
with my entrailed empathy.
If that could stop
my stoppings, be
an armored stop sign–
the only red I feel–
I would gladly ceasefire.
My soul is aimless,
my fate, loaded and empty:
still, ripping through
a whir of stale air,
smash-faced, buried
in thick red brick. I am
bumbled, a bee forced to sting,
a kamikaze with a gun
to the back of my head.
Peter Kahn is a founding member of the London poetry collective Malika’s Kitchen. His poems have been published internationally in various journals including Lumina, Make, Pearl and The Fourth River. He is a prize-winner in the Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition (UK) and was a finalist in the Fugue Poetry Contest, among other competitions. A high school teacher since 1994, Peter was the recipient of the Wallace Douglas Award for contribution to the Chicago youth writing community.
© 2011, Peter Kahn
Halfway Down the Stairs 