Revisionist Poetry – Discussions #2, v.2

They rise from earth and flame: clay fired into witness,
three figures planted on the plaza like a question.
One spits syllables—short, bright as flint—
“Remember the border,” it says, “remember the lists.”
The second counts each answer, folds it into its mouth,
“Measure the rent, count the votes, soften the edge,” it counsels.
The third hunches, palms pressed to its ribs, silent as a bell;
its stillness rings louder than the others’ proofs.

Around them the city moves—buses, news, the clack of shoes—
unaware of this small congress at the intersection.
They argue in fragments: broadcast headlines, factory smoke,
the kind of phrases that bruise when repeated at night.
A wind slips through their knees; sparrows settle on their shoulders.

They are waiting—no patron, no unveiling—only this waiting,
hands of passersby brushing cold clay, pausing to read a date.
A child drops a folded paper at the base, a scribble inside:
not a plan, not a law—just a name and a question.
The statues shift (or the light shifts), and the paper flutters—
a tiny wind born of three mouths and one stillness.

Not a revolution that night, only a seed: a pause, a touch,
the slow work of remembering that begins with someone stopping.
Art, here, is not a proclamation but an interruption—
small, stubborn as a weed through cracked paving—
and sometimes a weed is the first green of a new map.