Because of all the trouble the democrats and black race are causing, I place this ad. No black people or democrats are allowed on my property until further notice.
–Raymond Agnor, The News-Gazette, July 15, 2015
The Judas trees are troubled. Purple bloom
long eaten by winds, woody seed-pods
coming on. No canker or coral-spot allowed
on these cordate leaves until further notice.
Lucy Long, Lee’s other horse, long buried
on Mackey’s farm, rolls her sad bones over.
The sorrel mare, steadier than Traveller, gentler,
sends a ghost breeze whickering through the field.
No one seems to prickle when I limp down streets
named for generals. Register me a damp cloud.
First read of my yielding body’s party might be
mother, white. Not from here but allowed
on the grass, not a hue or sex shot on sight.
Privilege with a scent of condescension.
Because a threat riffles through my newspaper.
Unclassified. Some words can ionize.
Because new cattle underpass, football camp,
Auto Recyclers buying glass. A gust kicks up
where citizens dozed under flags, during
the killings. Charges me. I place this ad.
There will be no authoritative
version, ever. Like coal,
ballads are found chiefly in mountains.
Not Florida wetlands, unfolded,
exposed. The pulse is love, sometimes
pressured by heat into hate.
No moral. No right side. Ballads
start at the end, are incomplete
without salsa and merengue.
Without rainbow strobe lights swirling.
So gather the flashes. The dancing.
Dissonance. A woman pushing
her son to safety. The shirtless boys
carrying the bleeding boys
out to the street. Preserve the half-
forgotten, fugitive noise
of weeping mixed with singing. None
can recover the sense. Down
the petals crash and break. I’m sick
at heart and I want to lie down.
