300 Years

A man's heart only breaks when it cannot.
He hears but only shortly
after his mouth has closed like a buttoned-up fish:
Here are the sewing stitches, flood songs.
It is the job of a man to know what comes,
what he should do, so that he may hide.
Otherwise it's up to him; it's upon himself
to deflect all hatred. Men are elk.

A man's heart only breaks when it cannot.
Because he said, How dare you,
and because he said, my people suffered
for three hundred years
and you're complaining he said, about a long day.
It rocks back and forth scratching itself as if never hearing.

You can't eat the heart, though that is a man's job.
In those four dark
chambers where a man can be kept years.