A little girl with golden ringlet curls skips up the stone path
Tucked under her arm, she carries a white box tied together with a red, elastic ribbon
Come play with me she pleads, pulling at my shirt
My mind is elsewhere, and though I wasn't expecting a visitor, I laugh and let her drag me over under the big willow tree
She cuddles close, her small heartbeat familiar, almost
Her muddy brown eyes sparkle with excitement
I want to show you my toys she says, pushing her box to me
Open it! she orders
Good-naturedly, I tug at the ribbon
It is tough, almost muscular to touch, but I wrestle the box from its grasp
Only to realize how beautiful the box itself is, a rose and thorn pattern carved into its bone-white ivory panels
Go on the girl prompts
I push off the lid, and smile at the girl before looking inside

The girl claps her hands and laughs as I gag
Acidic tears burning in my eyes
Aren't they lovely? she sing-songs
She shows off her puppets one at a time, squeezing each by their broken strings
And I recognize them all

There is an elementary school teacher, a hunched and frail grandmother, the piano man, that boy from my town who jumped off a bridge,
my dad
All of them so very, very
Dead
My own personal collection of ghosts dangled before my eyes

The left side of their chests are stained rust-red, a gaping heart-shaped wound hacked into the fabric of who they were

I stare at the girl wide eyed, shaking with rage
What are you? I whisper
She blinks up at me and then, I recognize her
I recognize myself
For this little girl is me as I was, before I met the boy,
The boy with endless eyes
Before I met-

The little girl lunges into my face
Baring her small, perfect teeth and red, red lips in a controted grin

He says hi she hisses
And a shiver runs through my veins

She stands, pushing her way beyond the weeping branches of the willow tree, clearly done with me
Over her shoulder she calls the words
You can expect a visit soon
Before skipping down the stone path, box in arm again
Until even the gold reflections of her hair are swallowed by mists

I shudder, wishing I could close my eyes
But I see her box every time I blink, with my dead all meatly arranged in a line-
I go and chase the sunlight
And it gets a little better
I feel safe enough to breathe

But still, in the back of my mind,
I know her warning resonates true
Expect a visit soon

Somehow I'm never ready when he comes.

Run away, my love. Just run away
with me. We are animals, lost
in bite marks and desperate visions
of bleak futures where you are no
longer here to light up my skies
with your starlight. My limbs are lost
to your touch, my mouth empty
as you breathe me in. I am
human only when you observe me.
There are no skull shaped prisons
or cries of terror, only
the sound of laughter ringing
like the songs of lost
birds in the night,
longing and true.

on tuesday,
dylann roof was sentenced to his death.
on tuesday we tried
to make one body feel like nine.
to make one body feel like justice.
on tuesday we said
there has got to be some price to pay
for entering the house of god
with a sinful tongue
and a handgun.

today,
six days later,
we remembered the rev. dr. martin luther king, jr.
we looked at the world,
called it a place with potential for change,
called it that because there has to be some softer way
to look at bloodshed,
for sanity’s sake.
if not then
all that remains is a solitary image of dr. king rolling in his grave because he knows,
knows that breathless black bodies
are a constant,
are transcenders of time,
whether sunken in rivers,
hung from taut ropes,
or bathing in blood on historic church floors,
singing, singing, screaming, shrill
for some messiah bringing mercy, mercy, mercy.

felicia sanders wants mercy:
prays for it, wills it down from up above,
unfolded from the hands of god
so that it might fall upon the head and in the eyes
and within the very being
of the man who killed her son.


it takes a certain grace —
one so foreign to me i can hardly write of it —
to see god in such men who deliberately defy Him,
to ask that heaven’s gates
be so indiscriminate and overt.
i would want him to burn for this.
but it is not my say,
not my life,
not my long, resounding, unflinching “hallelujah!”
not my certain type of grace.

breathless black bodies
are a constant,
are transcenders of time, a recurring motif.
but so too, then, is the black body full
of breath,
that inhales and exhales faith
without ceasing.

such is the black body
that sees a little bit of god in dylann roof,
that prays that he prays for forgiveness,
that thinks there to be but one kingdom,
and he, too,
a worthy subject.

the solitary image of dr. king rolling in his grave
is not a surprise.
the black body has always known
so well
how to die.

but felicia sanders hopes her son’s killer finds mercy.
perhaps the one thing the black body has always known better
is how to love.

(a.m.)