must I too light a match? (a letter to my friend and poetic hero, Mohamed Bouazizi)

I do not mean to sound selfish Mohamed
but I do not want to set myself
ablaze
akin to how you did, o so
heroically and poetically,
I can only imagine the pain of knowing your
final beauty
was indeed your last
and not easy on
your mother

yes, I understand
or at
least I think I understand
see, there is a
man named Mr. Canton
and thanks to him
someday I may too be
in flames,
and then my name might be spread
like brushfire
across America through encampments
it would flow
like the verses of Phil Ochs
and revive tired squatters

but I hope not
but I am sad because of that
Mohamed you were beautiful
Mohamed you still are beautiful
what you have done
the poem you have written
and still write from your new perch
at the seat f
the greatest
body writers,
next to a man
from Tiennamen

I don’t want to be ablaze
and that sounds selfish
when I talk to you Mohamed
most especially when
I cite you
as Allen once sighted Orca,
through my days, these days
I feel I owe you an ode
at the very least,
a letter and poem

but for now
can we settle in a common ground

where I am American and you are
too,
in the form of my hero
and your lack of a Visa

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