WINNER
Elegy for Breath Poem by Carlos Andrés Gómez
Picture the adolescent: mimicking what makes him worthy. Pick his most potent snapshot for clickbait: fresh-faced but meanmugging; same mask I’d pull clean across my jaw for any Polaroid of me & my best friend in eighth grade. Let’s be clear: joke stance—now used to justify killing make just the justsnuffed, just clumsy youth branded bold-fonted & blood thirst. Peace sign transmogrified to gang sign— since the expert talking head confirmed it. The expert talks & confirms inside a rectangular frame that renders most of him invisible. Talks & confirms two bulletpoints from the bleachedteeth interviewer. But nowhere is the testimony of breath stifled, the practiced hands that remained watched whenever they ascended, whether in prayer or surrender, holding a bag of groceries, a cell phone, or a son. Nowhere is that last sigh freed from his tired lungs as the sixth shot struck the base of his skull sprinting with back turned. The neighbor describes that final sound I did not hear & yet cannot unhear. It is suddenly the last sound I hear from too many people
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3/3/19 6:28 PM
