stones beneath their tired feet will
have a place to live, and speak.
The Star
our hearts are full of
care for the dark skin
kids who want to be free and
are certain God comes down
from the lynching tree. if only
you knew the thousands of
stories giving you a reason to
see, to live without lament, and
never smell the rotting wood
that chokes life from us? if only
you knew these bleeding hands, the
sick pouring from our knotted throats,
our bodies trampled by indefensible
hate? if only you knew this bitter
bread, the longing in our flattened
bones, the kneeling with bowed
heads at the altars where we weep
long prayers rising to heaven for
our young dead? if only you looked for
the bright star unveiling the terrifying
hoods worn by those dancing round
hanging trees? then, you would walk
the streets with us refusing a world
bursting with hate for dark skin!
The Paper Weight
on the night table, I saw a stone
with many names scribbled on
it carried by her across the border,
used for a paper weight for the scant
letters from home. her thin hands
often reached for those huddled words
that gently massaged her aching heart
and reminded her of another country
far away. about once each week she
laid awake at night trying to remember
whether or not she wrote a letter about
life in Alphabet City, or the feeling of
living like a mural with the names of
the dead painted on the side of a building
people could only see from a distance. heavy
rains on the Lower East Side always made
her wildly weep about being confined to hiding
and slowly perishing in a world that never cared
to learn her name. on the bottom of the stone
paper weight, she wrote the name of her murdered
brother, and a tiny prayer that said, “Lord, help this
world see we are human beings.”
The Trousers
I wore rags on the block
for school, play and church,
treated them like a block of
ice held in hand on a hot day
I thought would never dare let
me down by melting. when
kids laughed about the puddle
jumping pant legs, I tried a
first prayer objecting to the
impermanence pleading with
God to stunt my height and
keep me in those nice blue
trousers—God didn’t listen!
I wanted to explain how it
was forbidden to object to
slacks with courage to last,
that paid weekly visits to the
candles in church, absorbed
many lessons in school, and
could run quickly through the
streets reading books aloud. I
wore those raggedy things till
they were almost shorts, then
took them to Orchard Beach
for a swim, scorched them in
the sun, and lost them at last
in an apartment fire, burn. I
was surprised to miss them
when I found a bundle of ashes
with a dirty old tag in what was
left of our place—like losing
a good old friend!
My Country
my country where do you
exist from sea to sea, how
long will it be until liberty
like the air breathed is for
everyone, when will your
national borders reflect the
memory of Brown blood
spilled, how long before your
compass lets you march to
our Spanish graves, where
people
