Sit Beside the Drum

By Silvio Stifanelli

It is no skin on wood—

it is the pulse you mislaid in yesterday’s hurry.

Each strike shaves a sliver of moon

from the floor of your throat.

Listen—

between boom and hush

slides the name you keep folded

among pocket change.

The drum will not pry;

it only mirrors you, translating the tremor

you blame on weather.

Beat One — night folds its fuse.

Beat Two — dawn redraws its map.

Beat Three — rivers wheel upstream.

Beat Four — your storm stands upright.

Let the rhythm tunnel through your ribs

like a train with no stations.

Saplings flare from your cuffs,

and the ancestors, bivouacked in the echo,

inflate their lungs with wind.

No forecasts, no quiet Sundays—

the drum repeats what you feared:

the storm was always you,

and now—unstoppable—

it marches in four–four time.

By Silvio Stifanelli