Planes have stopped searching the sky for answers
as the crowd gathers into the terminal, fists up.
For once, we are made of metal– wings to give
the silenced flight. We mobilize on the ground
with footsteps of thunder, voices of titanium.
In rising, we promise to fly, scan the landscape
for green landings. Drop the ladders down,
worry about the pressure– not the altitude.
(originally published in Urtica Lit Blog, Summer 2019)
I have been trying to cough up the bald eagle
lodged in my heart, but only feathers have landed
wet on this dirt. I love this country, but this is too white
for me to say. Too long have I been silent in privilege
while our nation’s darkest forces– white-winged
and fire-breathing– cast their manifest, the harming
kind of loudness. There is no one in my life who
admits agreement with white supremacy, but I also
know there must be– and if silence is complicity,
I must be no longer. So I cough out the beak, the flag,
the gun whose silent bullets I have already fired.
I am so sorry for the silence–
everyone I haven’t known I have hurt.
(originally published in Rise Up Review, Winter 2018)