i was getting out of your way
BY ZAKIA HENDERSON-BROWN
in memoriam, Sandra Bland
Just picked petunias sweetkiss my knuckles
Creating a genre of springtime. I succumb
To the urge to sing: what gift this small refuge
In my palm; the soft city wind, a lodestar.
Sudden rain catches me and I cinch
Like a ball of rubberbands, a noose thirsty
For air—then run, past an idle siren
Posing as a red vase: an empty vessel
Looking to transform whatever beauty.
It sees, in the skyline of my figure:
A smoking star; a token for what
Can bend or be taken, but breaks.
It determines, like a light turning green
That a wilderness resides in me