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A New Day
Is Coming
—for
Sam Cornish
Our souls keep looking back
wondering have we got over
air-raid drills, fear of the sky
the beast with trigger fingers
Strange Fruit as a dirty
book
that haunts we. Hanging in
the summer air like clothes
Adam in his beauty keeps
the ladies weeping for Jesus
A mother walks slowly up
the stairs. Those who care
with a green eye live on the
other side of the street. Today
her soldier son was chipped
off in a beige Humvee by a
roadside bomb. Like good
ole days he had married a
yellow woman like his mama
before he died. We disappear
from the cities like Indians from
their tribal lands. They line up
for the buses or at train stations
like comic characters from a
Caldwell novel or like heroes
in Steinbeck. They take all of
we like a Scottsboro beginning
Maggie riding the cold winds
speaks a warning & a
dedication
Police cars keep circling blocks
waiting for the city to break
loose
Everybody knows dreams & rage
go together like prayers &
tears
that won’t stop the war to come
These are bitter cold hungry days
In hotels our women make money
being sweet to white men. A
preacher
said Sunday a new day is coming |
