Reflection on the spray painting of the Robert E. Lee monument during the protests that followed the death of George Floyd. Late spring, 2020. Monument Avenue, Richmond, Virginia.


Leave it some say
in its now public grave
or genesis perhaps
decorated in the art of the day.
Graffiti on the old guard.
Reinvented
in cursive, in shorthand.
Scrawl scarred
in black, in red,
white on brass
told through the quill of a paint can
like some postmodern
montage of
script on monument
juxtaposing what truth was then
to what truth is now.
There is no black or white,
just shades of gray.