Considering Facts
by Saquandria Burrus

Don't cry for me.
Cry for the tens of thousands,
born unfree,
chained souls,
stretching their eyes to the light,
for sight,
the ones wishing the next day will be filled,
with dreams untold,
those praying for an unfolding in the light,
and wanting more,
something greater than their present,
The one's that unknowingly possess,
an effervescence so humble,
you are redefined in their presence,
To Them!!...Give Your Tears...
The Lost,
The Forgotten,
The Strange,
The Weary,
The Lame,
The ones who search for answers in the Dark,
The shocked, confused and afraid,
the beaten,
the bloodied,
those who died,
eyes staring back at hateful faces,
unrecorded slaughters of colored flesh,
goes so far back,
it's date-less,
cry for the little black boy,
ancestor to my soul,
seven-years-old,
killed by four white snickering men,
castrated,
bleeding to death,
never written about,
Like Dr. King,
or Emmitt Till,
all he heard as he slipped away,
was evil laughter,
and his own struggle against his tears,
his blood having betrayed him,
as it stained the grass surrounding,
the tears they'll never get!!!
And they didn't,
he slipped away,
unafraid,
and no one remembers his name....

Cry for him,
them,
the ones who gave their life's fluid,
those are the truest,
the one's we owe for being free,
Cry for them,
But don't you DARE cry for me...

What Does Not Belong
by Micah Hicks

The house with the hearses in front,

three of them docked on cinder-blocks,

wheel wells wrapped with caterpillar sacks,

tires rotted to lace.

 

The neighbors come down the white road

in vests and hats, fathers first,

daughters last, their foreheads blunt.

They circle around the house. Glare

 

coats the windows, gives only reflections

of shadows and hands, hides the boy

blunt-headed inside. They see

what does not belong, pull handfuls of pebbles

 

out of their shoes, stretch pebbles to stones

in their hands, and pile them on the house

until it is gone,

 

and there are only

the hearses in the yard

throbbing.

 

  

 

Inside
by Micah Hicks

in core of the mantle

metronome buried

sets the pattern

for the fallout

 

ticks off the hours

shedding exoskeletal

 

reverberates like gong

breaking into splinter wall

breaking into splinters fall

falling like paper

 

settles like gears like snow

locks sharp and cold

a nano-slurry humming

interstate intravenous

 

our hearts stand

when the metronome shouts

shouts fascist love

like a howl in the pistons

 

and all our minutes break

flake away exoskeletal

 

 

On your hands, all the lines remap,

lose the texture to hold shadows.

They hurry to the moon,

fill its eyes with iron.

 

The moon falls, dies

in your lap, silver yolk washes

your thighs, cuts like acid.

Sears down to your womb and kills it.

 

Shadow hands entwine

in a wicker night

to suffocate our daughters. You can't

birth another light to quell them.

 

The sun won't come back

to look this time, mother,

its lover dead on your thighs,

your hands that failed

our daughters.

Like Life Does
by Micah Hicks

before finger-bones and fish-hooks

dawn-dew and stones skipping skipping

only white shell tumbling

snail mother her dead remains

dark membrane rotted to conch-ribs

slick stain alone cold-glistening

 

life came found her turning

hair-legged feet scrabbling into shell-mouth

mandible-mouth grinning

ascended the tower empty skies star-between

to eat and eat like life does

pull her flesh down from the walls

eat the last of her like life does

 

in the shadow of a conch-curl

egg sack sat brewing burst a snail child

life upstairs happy gnawing

child stalk-eyed trembling in the tower-turn

she twisted slickness a brown sheet off her snail-foot

spun it like water like threads like gold snotty hanging

sealed away the tower top life devouring

 

high on the white slopes tower dough-rolling

egg sack brewed until it burst

child sliding out onto the tower top

grew under star light like a light-house watcher

all this tale between the cold comets spinning

wet flesh seared by star-beams streaming

spun a shell of her own mother never had to

 

she grew tilted the tower ate the mountain

of her grandmother didn't know it

snail-foot spreading new tower rising

mother and grandmother thorns only

she swallowed them like life does

 

this a thousand times like a thousand nights turning

snail daughters swallowing snail mothers

arc growing until the last curled back to an old door

settled in herself wet-warm

she the sphere she the circle

slept that last night like mercy

 

a thousand nights beat inside her

buried in a snail heart

mandible-mouthed grinning life growing

hair-legged life came out eating

broke through her like fountains break

boiling out her shale sides

shot through like an arrow

not stopping like life does

 

crawling life pooled on her like blood

fell across coils and furrows

over her bristle-feet flowing

it eating it moving it changing

a thousand thousand-nights until hands

 

until finger-bones and fish-hooks

dawn-dew and stones skipping skipping

all this tale between the cold comets spinning

like life does