The other name
safeguards
your identity
life's green card
matches the form
of a poem
and works to shelter
our absence
from betrayal
with an urgent
wish to be not an exile
but an open door poet
scenting no caution
to live among others
in sisterhood
as a brother lip syncs
his soul music
with a solace of speech
here in an open air
labor festival
I am asked
to urban read
my fierce verse
for all soaring singers
peace partisans,
consumers of the sun
survivors of fascism
and freedom rides,
lovers of natural species,
animal shelter providers
and to recollect
those who stood here
before us.
B.Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher. His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art, The Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, Hawaii Review, Le Guepard (France), Kadmos (France), Prism International, Jejune (Czech Republic), Leopold Bloom (Budapest), Antioch Review, and Prairie Schooner. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.