Mayhem—Arrival and Departure

Rally (n.) 1650s, originally in the military sense of ‘a regrouping of renewed
            action after a repulse’

I confuse the armored buses for deliverance                a line of colored
steel     some tarnished            some spit—
shined  My surprise at this release of white
bodies              Their flocking together

Their delivery of          renewed action
the guns hanging         from their waists
so many           baseball bats even,
one wrapped in                        rusted barbed wire

I imagine their knuckles          exhausted        from tight-gripping
all that power                           Their revival from this
banding together—      one moving mass
of enthusiasm              I am standing:

a body radiating           in the stilled heat
no clouds to encase     a sliver             of the sun
Sweat trailed    my thighs        my jawline
I wished to be rinsed               washed away

I wished for a different kind    of fragmenting

I never recognized the buses’ departure
The fade of roused bodies       I was left
in still silence               The city ate up by the quiet

 

Kiyanna Hill has roots in Petersburg, Richmond, and Charlottesville, Virginia. She is a MFA candidate at the University of Maryland.