African Voices Summer 2016 (Digital) | Page 21

It’s A Miracle
how my city dies each winter
the trees as bare & raw
as a damn heartbreak
& in the news my president
tired of crying talking about
gun control on the same day
that Matthew’s poem
showed up in my mailbox.
& how I couldn’t imagine
the words Kevlar & children
in back to back stanzas. & how
this just reminds me of ’93 when
I saw my first dead body outside
the bodega. It sported blue kicks
that looked iridescent like those
fish that camouflage themselves
against the dark ocean. & how
her face looked only eight
years old, maybe ten. & how

someone’s second amendment
right seems to only leave a trail
of children’s bodies & brown
bodies. & how some days
I am afraid of stepping out
of the house or of whether
my lover brown & beautiful
will make it home. & I can’t
write anymore about death
yet it’s all I know. & how tonight
the sky will be all kinds of colors
against the iciness of humanity.
& isn’t it a miracle that we
haven’t killed every last one
of us yet? A miracle that
there are still those among us
who sit & wait hoping for Spring —
© 2016 Yesenia Montilla

Artist: Jonathan Guy-Gladding (JAG).
african Voices

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