Posts for June 24, 2022

She

She comes in all the colors

In forms and curves

Through curly red, flowing locks

Her pale, freckled skin

She’s in the dreadlocks

In braids that her mother’s

Mother taught her mother before

She is draped in wisdom and strength

Handed down like an heirloom

She is in the faces

Her cries for justice unheard

She smothered her way

Through slavery, corsets,

Through civil rights

Through ages of lawmakers

Telling her and her before, no.

Through every march, protest

With every right, law, bruised ego

She has clawed, screamed and climbed

Her voice, her voice and her voice.

Voices of our oldest mothers and theirs

Your sisters, your daughters

She is the reason we are all here.

She, her, she and her, her, and her.

With a drop of the gavel

The echoes of her voices

Silenced.

Like the murky river it comes
drowning me drowsy
Pulls under with weighty water
heavy, solid
a torpid state,
sluggish ‘n slow

Days ago, wakeful, eyes propped open
Slumber eluded me
pray not a precursor 
to something sinister
draining me drowsy

friends are married 
holding one hand 
and the other. quietly
kind with everyone 
who loves.

we’re all here for you. dreaming.

Close the curtain
and sit in the dark with the rest of us. 
It is so so so dark–
but in the dim, you can make
shapes out of the darkness
and at least hear
the rest of us trying to breathe–
the low murmer deafening.

outside the dark summer
is illuminated by fireflies
following the pattern 
they’ve done for 
ninety-nine million years
silent and vibrant and purposeful

it’s not that I hate this place
every single part of earth
that humans have tread
is engorged on our blood
through violence and cruelty

it was that I hoped
that things were getting
better
and we wouldn’t be 
so divided
ignorant

here we are
sick and dying
faster than most
other places
believing that
our way
isn’t killing us
with people shooting
up schools
shooting
up heroine
crushing pills
because we can’t accept
the rules that are made
in their favor

they’re killing us
while they promise
that they’re not
shoving thier hands
in our pockets
pretending that
it’s thier right
when they keep 
taking ours

we brag about
working
sixty hours 
a badge of honor
breaking ourselves
for those slick shoed
believing that 
working hard
will get you there
and it’ll make sense
in the end

but by then
it’ll all be too late
to do anything
that we planned 
because we’ll be spent
and tired
old things that 
are left to rot
like junkyard cars

the thought 
when we look 
at our kids
is that at least
they will have it
a little better

today isn’t one of those days
today isn’t one of those days
today isn’t one of those days

Here I stand at the
end of this day,
my right to choose
stripped away.

I feel exposed. Unsafe.
Bombarded with
lousy excuses about
babies and life,

just to take my freedom.
I wept when they aired it,
even with warning,
unprepared for the

sinking feeling
I had to hide
while I watched my kids
celebrate the end of

theatre camp
with their play.
They did amazing.
But the whole time,

all I could think about was
how they deserve better.

tap tap- tap tap- tap tap
white cane, sun glas ses
tap tap sees with ears
we race to see and do
tap tap- tap tap
sound of things
ever ry-one so  
tap tap biz sy
tap tap feels with skin
knows to smell
he can tell
tap tap tap tap
inter nal peace

Call Mom. I’m depressed, so tell nurse
the doctor can change medication. I’m not

going there, I’m not crazy She knows
I mean that kind of medicine. Bipolar.

She finally gets treatnent now, trapped
in this nursing home. Tried walking?

No I reroute subject to sunshine, clouds 
gone, fresh air they’re freezing me to death.

I’m basically just sitting here dying Well, we’re all
technically dying the minute we’re born. She laughs.

I know what you were looking for when you
went through all my drawers, you little stinker

Don’t remember going through your drawers. We laugh.
You were looking for those pencils, I know. She means

the gel pens I gave her, Christmas, to color paper dolls
in the book who wore 1930s dresses like her as a girl.

She’s never mentioned those lacy pinafores, button shoes,
hair bows, but always remembers– I did something wrong.

We say fuck your sup-
reme court in less than seven-
teen syllables, man.

i feel like the sky saves me–
the oranges & the pinks
reminding me
of the baby blanket
my mother made me

& then she died.