Category: Racial & Social justice
-
conversations with the memory of a young girl
soles on cold concrete my bare feet absorb last night’s chill I watch parents with children in strollers linger in the park remember a young girl who lived with her parents on my paper route the only daughter of Holocaust survivors she invited me in from the cold fed me cookies and hot cocoa taught…
-
New from the Brothers Grimm
Once upon a time In a sleepy backwater river town A young woman sleeps In her own apartment In her own bed In the middle of the night Men do not knock Or even say hello Break down her door Shoot her lover Kill her dead No one gets charged Wrapped in blue Nice and…
-
Fadeaway, or, Hampton Park
They shoot hoops laugh and joke in a park that was once part of a plantation owned by a general in the war to keep their ancestors enslaved Two blocks from the park the general’s heirs live on the high ground of the same plantation Raising cattle and horses for fun near the ruins of…
-
Drowning in air
Decades from now they’ll join ancestry.com hoping DNA matches explain why they don’t look like their family why aunts and uncles are hush hush and still they’ll love their adoptive families They’ll seek out birth families that have been looking for years praying for a miracle hear their momma died broken hearted in a barrio…
-
The day before
The day before the 4th of July: Independence Day for white Americans Genocide for first Americans 3/5 of a man for black Americans What was the intent of this experiment this Constitution It’s obvious and I don’t care about original intent ‘Founding Fathers’ understood this was not perfect or Why else allow amendments 7-3-20
-
When the world became flat, again
When the world became flat, again When science denial became in vogue When “the world’s equilibrium hath been upset” When billionaires received government assistance before the poor When separation of church and state became a lie When not paying taxes became a badge of honor When white supremacists crawled out of their holes When concentration…
-
Edisto island
Nine dollar earrings from a gift shop by the Sea Cow Cafe carried home in a little brown paper bag With a refrigerator magnet that says Edisto, South Carolina reminders of a COVID safe distancing day On a small island beach worn the next day to an airport to send a grandson back to Indiana…
-
Sunlight in my yard
A non-confrontational attitude is a sign of weakness to a bully our small victories a rallying cry for an enemy An armistice is not peace it is a time to rest nurse hurts and prepares for the next fight I am at war with racism and injustice I sign no armistice until they are routed,…
-
If police were lifeguards
Trained to save themselves recorded on cell phones drowning souls held under denied resuscitation I don’t know the code they speak, but I see it written on bodies caught in riptides of a fast receding tide 6-15-20
-
Among the trees
I’ve grown soft sitting on our porch watching a group of women come every morning with a leaf blower to clear debris from the basketball court Line up at safe distances do stretches and calisthenics on yoga mats, jog through the park roll up their mats and disappear into their cars _ I read the…
My husband's poetry 