06 November 2024
Red, red autumn.
Sun rises over the Fifth Third tower, bloody
& ever-distant.
Ever-distant & hungry. It’ll rain here soon,
I reckon. & ain’t
this a morning of mourning anyway? My kin
& I pepper tears
across the red landscape. Anomalies, now,
endangered,
distant suns drowning in the red-angry
clouds– hellbent,
them clouds are, in choking out the light–
I watch, [un]broken,
as the chill of the day climbs the horizon,
breaks violent
against the front porch. It is here. This,
O this. Lord,
my God, it’s happening. & still, the remainder
of the day.
My students staring blankly at me, across
the red chasm
of classroom– we know exactly what you are.
Painted crimson
in the bloodbath this country is hellbent
on creating.
Here I stand, bathed in the blood of this Lamb
of sunlight,
moments before it’ll be sacrificed. Woman
enough, yes,
for the fact of myself– woman enough for this
death sentence
of a season. How my body falls, a dying leaf.
Buck Creek, North Carolina
There, a dark
holler, rain ham’rin heavy
on rusted roof. Empty talk
in the den–
Ain’t never seen the water
climb that high before. & then
the languid
lapping of water at the
windowsills. Rising, rapid
baptism.
How the hunger of Heaven
devoured, a damning rhythm–
the water
rising, rising, barging in.
Nary a desperate murmur
as the creek
we’d known & known & worshiped
crested the furniture, bleak
& starving.
Nary a ragged breath, Lord,
as landslide brought us tumbling
down– buried
in the mud of this stark [un]
becoming. Broken. Bloodied.
