Lugubrious
this word sits like a heavy cloud,
a two-dollar term dropped in a nickel conversation
and you think it\'s got style, but it\'s really just swollen sorrow,
all dressed-up gloom crashing the party where slang
and stirred-up street talk are dancing.
and yet there\'s something delicious in the way
it rolls off the tongue like dark molasses
slow and thick, dripping with an aftertaste
that sticks to the roof of your mouth and you remember
that sadness can sometimes be savored.
so, I sling this not often used word into my verbal stew,
stirring the pot with a slow hand –
watching as the melancholy melody marries
the everyday beat of the barrio,
and just like that, lugubrious starts looking,
sounds sounding, like it always had a place in the pulse of our speech.
like we\'re all talking in a thousand tongues
building a tower of Babel out of synonyms for blues,
out of the rhythm of a rain-soaked street
where we splashed, and melancholy was the puddle that reflected our faces,
and we, the defiant, daring to dance in the downpour.
Because lugubrious or any word fun enough to flip
through your mind and skip off your lips
with a wink of woe and a grin of glee –
is just another instrument in our symphonic streets,
another note in the high-rise harmony,
a thousand words for the price of feeling free.