young Jesse Washington —
even though you on the wooden stick
cross of fire bitten charred cut & burned 5 minute jury
April 15, 1916 Waco, Texas shackled & dragged — lynched
you live on
Trayvon Martin face down
red juice on the lawn clutching candy rushing home
the hoodie the hoodie the prowler shooter said
upside down shredded night
because of you you
we march touch hands lean back leap forth
against the melancholy face of tanks & militia we move
walk become
we become somehow
Eric Garner we scribble your name sip your breath now
our breath cannot be choked off our
skin cannot be flamed totality
cannot be cut off
each wrist
each bone
cannot be chained to the abyss
gnashing levers & polished
killer sheets of steel
we are remarkably loud not masked
rough river colors that cannot be threaded back
hear us
Freddie Gray here with us
Jesse Washington Trayvon Martin
Michael Brown the Black Body holy
Eric Garner all breath Holy
we weep & sing
as we write
as we mobilize & march
under the jubilant solar face
Juan Felipe Herrera has just been named the Poet Laureate of the United States. In the late 1960s, at UCLA, Juan Felipe began as a feverish shouter of poems. He turned to experimental street theater in the 1970s and traveled in Mexico’s Indian country in search of a new poetics. Since then, he has written twenty-nine books.
