for sonia

as if we did not lose another
as if life were never so convenient
and guns so easy to reach
our country's so trigger happy these days
or sad
depending on who's dying today
depending on the touch
the moon raises my rivers yesterday
i leaked all around the house
a bad cough
and a cloud looking over my shoulder as i wrote and though i cry
i am celebrating a woman i love
who loved me before i knew myself to be
what blooms in the blood, what scratches the voice trembles words
every day is a new mourning
another fight we live to dance between tears beating on our faces
i am tired of strength
i am tired of strength
when i first showed up to the community organizing meeting
i uttered the word 'poetry'
and their faces sunk with confusion
who's got time for poems, when the worlds on fire
and your brother's body on your front door
and your sister's been missing for weeks and your dad got laid off
and your mother gone mad with mothering and your uncle locked up
and your aunt need a fix i mean, i mean
life can get you down and out
but when the organizers was weary
and all the marching wore them down
and all the meetings ended in arguments
and all the foundations bought out the snakes
and all the trauma piled up on their desks
and all the campaigns ended with politicians
i offered, i offered
poems in their palms like petunias revolutionary
and blushing shades of plum
i fed them Sonia
and
Jane
and
June
and
Pat Parker
and
Carolyn Rodgers
how every poem still pierces true
like yesterdays battlefield is tomorrows front yard
still
still, all my hero's is fighting depression
some live to see what they fought to prevent
and we ought to keep our hopes high
but all this comfort and security got our institutions
kidnapped in broad daylight treaty torn
and tricked
bamboozled by the beaming brilliance of greed
got our babies programmed for numbness
content is
and what is an enemy if we do not know who our friends are
and who is a comrade these days when the poems are good
depending on who reposts them
depending on who's fetching for awards
and who will feed our activists, our organizers freedom
if not the poets?
we are losing our front line warriors to suicide
and is not choosing to fight a sort of sacrifice
a kind of offering
all our children have become alters to the liberation front
the other day, the other day
we lost Amber Evans
baby girl found in the Scioto River
she was 28
and before that it was Erica Garner
heart full of storm and lightening
she was 27
and before that it was Marshawn McCarrel
on the steps of the Ohio statehouse
haunted by the hunting
he was 23
Bassem Masri, Bassem Masri
our Palestinian brother from another mother
what about
what about Ferguson
and Edward Crawford
and Darren Seales
and how dreams still smell of teargas and milk
we cry
we cry trumpets and turntables in the corners of our hopes
we rhythm and blues
and though i cry
and though i cry
and though i cry
i am celebrating
a woman i love
she who turned the pen in her hand to a grenade
haiku homegirl folklore florist
flung
stories into our minds
planted orchids
and daffodils
sunflowers

she who, she who shivered the sky
rain showers and sunsets born of her blessing
the flesh of her words
kindred sister who wrote for daughters
of a movement
who say, do and act
the call
response
resist
riot of our rebellious laughter
as we readied our reasons for writing
we armed ourselves with her poems
a strategy for organizing the heart
prophetic prayers
a smile made of spirituals and birth pains
these days
these days, it hurts to write
every sentence is a false promise
is we, or is we not
trying to get free
and when the poems do what they do
they get it done
Sister Sanchez
eternal fellow fire spitter
bad
i mean bad
i mean bad to the bone
i never met a poet who loved us like you do
all of us
and when my anger knocks the wind out of my weeping
i sit on the hills of your humming words
and feast of all the ways,
we got to get to where we're going in the quiet mirror of a poem
how to be human
how to shake loose arms outstretched
summoning us, uncool and truth telling care
how to heal in the cathedral of hands
this is a poem for you
and for us
for all the poems that sistered us in this ancestral war
all the lines
somersaulting sister
Sister Sanchez
you are
our North Star
in our darkest nights