Poem: Redemption

I am that black boy tamed away
like a slapdash pellet fired into a space

without behest. I cleaved with everything
I see. I, too, must survive in this race.

I have many razors in my body already;
My father, who was killed by his own car

like a cacoon seed hearsed under the ground.
My mother turned grief to a wrapper—swathed

around her torso. Each time we pray, grief
hunt on us till it stole my mother’s soul, too.

I wonder the kind of mutualistic affairs we
shared. I still want to believe, “blood is thicker

than water.” But everything in my own family—
love, ecstasy & bloodline—are watery. They

dissolve in hasty into the air.
I was wallowed like a tattered cloth.

I am here again, to make this redemption
an ink and wet my grief with poetry.

Author: poetryfest

Submit your Poetry to the Festival. Three Options: 1) To post. 2) To have performed by an actor 3) To be made into a film. View all posts by poetryfest