At the Lynching Museum, Bryan Stevenson Says / Signs Nailed to the Mailbox on Winnequah Road / Reparations
At the Lynching Museum, Bryan Stevenson Says
— National Memorial for Peace and Justice – Montgomery, Alabama
Signs Nailed to the Mailbox on Winnequah Road
they won’t say
empire
nailed to the mailbox
they won’t say
perpetual war
nailed to the mailbox
they won’t say
black babies
twice as likely
nailed to the mailbox
they won’t say
welfare
for corporations
nailed to the mailbox
black
new moms
four times as likely
nailed to the mailbox
institutional
racism + sexism
=
early black death
nailed to the mailbox
trickle down
economics
+ three jobs
=
no living at all
nailed to the mailbox
who we pipe
cradle to prison
to grave
nailed to the mailbox
your
Sapphire Preferred
Citi Card
bankrolls
private prisons
nailed to the mailbox
in case of
emergencies
of white fragility
close eyes
for comfort
nailed to the mailbox
they will say
for your own damn good
nailed to the mailbox
they will say
the 1%
sticky & sweet
nailed to the mailbox
they will say
you’re not from here
nailed to the mailbox
what if your
family
was rotting
in detention camps
in the desert?
nailed to the mailbox
drinking from the toilet
your cell
standing room only
nailed to the mailbox
what if your
kids
were in cages?
nailed to the mailbox
“Vladimir buddy
don’t meddle” (again)
wink wink
nailed to the mailbox
smash
the patriarchy
nailed to the mailbox
the American dream
Reparations
The auction block
still rides
on the black backs
of ghosts
hurling themselves
town to town
on furious horses
dawn noon and night
these emaciated
shadows
sawing every
gnarled branch
every chiseled rafter
that held them
each skeleton hand
that shackled
that swung
rifles whips batons
dynamite and gasoline
into Trailways buses
churches homes
now video—
phone
the best chance
still Eric Garner
can’t breathe
and everything
I’ve ever seen here
was built first
on black
brown
yellow skins
and blood
always blood
and bones
as any other
Dominic W. Holt is a poet and macro social worker (public policy and outreach) in Madison, WI. He taught writing at the University of Michigan, interned at the Michigan Quarterly Review, and received a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship in creative writing from the US Department of Education. He holds an MFA in creative writing and a Master of Social Work in social policy from the University of Michigan, and a BS in astrophysics from Indiana University. His work has appeared in Plainsongs, Stoneboat, Wisconsin People & Ideas, Hummingbird, Driftwood Press, Lifeboat, and other venues.
