Deborah Small: Break the Chains

for Deborah

like rubber-souled
stairsteps
or gavels with ridges
your voice builds
platforms
thick enough
for rollerskates

and in rhythm
with the last sigh
of the first bus home
your hand pulls
the seal
off the waiting punch-line
for the joke we're living

as a curled up
surprise for a
world in the wings
and a secret passageway
to the part of the story
when all the walls fall down

so
i know what happens
when a link bursts open
and steel reveals
its internal edges

i can see
the mosaic
of rubble painted clear
so I know what it means
that Deborah is here

every break
every chip
every slip
and mistake

gets a new life
and smoothed space
to grow

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Learn more about Deborah's organization Break the Chains

This is part of a series of poems and collages by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. To see the whole project go to The Listening Project: A Poetics of Relation.