Listen & Be Heard

Warehouse with boxes

piled high blocking

the sun

Boxes sit stacked

like empires under the

glare of fluorescent light

and I ask myself which box

I will check

African-American

Filipino

55 or older

college grad

single

married

divorced

With a box cutter I cut

through boxes

Slicing upwards and downwards

and sideways

In a fish market in Japan

a fish market in another

time zone

a man uses a long blade

to slice tuna

slicing through the gleam

of blue skin that holds

water’s calm and desperate

hue

slicing into sections

and chunks

An art handed down

through the centuries

And I slice boxes in

a warehouse, boxes the

color of my skin

Cutting away at the

boxes I have been put in

Like that man in

the fish market in Japan

Cutting towards art

(c) 2023 Tony Robles