I’m privileged to sit in my home on a sunny day
with just a headache
in late May two thousand twenty. God I feel
plenty guilty. My friends
are linking hands in the street and I am scared
of all that’s viral. Oh what has lingered
in the air since, yes, America.
I have wept with internet videos
in my shadowed home,
never gassed
standing up for what is right.
You say protests are only one part of the revolution. We can’t
just go out there and put ourselves and others in danger.
How does that help the cause?
I am donating fucking money
waiting
for unemployment to salvage
fruit. I can’t say no
to a food bank donation. To
the Freedom Fund. Reclaim the Block.
Justice for Ahmaud, Breonna… If I am not
downtown with my people
burning businesses of bigots
take all my worthless fucking money
and light the biggest fire
possible
(originally published in FlowerSong Press, Summer 2020)
scared
The Appointment of the Special Counsel
out of nowhere there’s a razor-thin wire hope
smoke from the top of the mountain and
we small spectators watching those distant trees
burn chatter among ourselves that finally there’s
a chance to reveal the truth about the source of smoke
and to be honest we’re terrified if there isn’t
a fire because we see it and wonder what else
is covered up because it’s there all around us in the air
(originally published in Rabid Oak, Spring 2018)
“A Man Bears Beliefs as a Tree Bears Apples”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
pleading with a red delicious begging god for good
even though I cannot process Jesus I still chew and
spit seed and you walk over the guts of me with your
shoes on sidewalk in the sweltering August of laying
in grass whispering love between dandelions so much
we’re sprouting from dirt in ugly ways all thorn
and bloom overgrown with each other there are
no gloved hands around anymore to pull us out
(originally published in Bluestem, Spring 2017)