POEM: Pulse
49 pulses
49 rhythms of sorrow and joy
49 dancers
their bodies pulsing with life
their bodies pulsing with ecstasy
their bodies pulsing with joy
49 people
brown people, black people, white people
49 dancers, 49 victims
49 lovers and beloveds
49 humans capable of all the human emotions
And 53 wounded
53 who have to live
with the deaths of 49 others
with the scars of bullet wounds
with the entry and the exit or maybe
where the fragment is lodged in their flesh
and can never be removed or fully healed
49 and 53
memory for their names
roses for their graves
a feast for the survivors
silence and shame for their killer
Pulse Nightclub, Orlando, FL, 2016
A Nest Made of Words 