my people

(after Langston Hughes)

prayer-engravers,
   shoorch bar dancers,
      poets—

  dogged inventors of our future,
             my people

jewelers,
   cobblers,
      seamstresses,

      coffee cup readers,
   chefs,
lavash makers, 

duduk virtuosos,
   generation raisers,
      masons,

          bankers,
      diagnosticians,
   playwrights,
rock stars,

   prayer engravers, all.
      shoorch bar dancers, all

   poets—
      poets, the eyes

            engravers—
      engravers, the fingers.
eyes and fingers, 

   inventors—
      inventors, the chest.
         the eyes, the fingers, the chest

             my people:
               dogged inventors of our future