My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 13

A breeze reminds us of redemption
The heat of bodies packed together in a steel cage
Praying only for a small bit of wind
She watched as the bodies vanished in the crowd
Capitulating to the heat as the men drag them away
The white of their shirts her last sight of them
As blood dropped slowly from their faces
The elation was too much to bear
Celebrants could only see before them
They could not see the masqueraders in the alleyway
Had no sense of the underside
She reached beneath her feet to pull a chunk of wood
Shaped like a human heart
She traced the spiral pattern that the insects bore
And closed her eyes for silence
The start of something, unlike that before
But how would they know who could lead the way?
Desperation from the weight of what was
Stunned from the prospect of now
And the journey of removal before them
In the square, the youth chant boldly
Know that anything melancholy is worthy of song
They tie their hearts together with invisible string
And strum the rhythm of destiny

12

From past to future, what will remain?
Weighed skillfully like the carver’s tools
Hieroglyphs etched into stone, he sits silently
Like the ancient artifacts locked in colonial museums
She had always yearned for hopeful days
No matter what had become of the streets
No matter the disappearance of men in her life
No matter how small they asked her to be