Reckoning
For we are witness to a reckoning,
survivor soliloquy in the crackle of boom mics
—the crowd floods and is flooded in the same breath,
tear gas waking, sometimes just tears,
lava coursing and cooling over skin ridges into armor—
teenagers remember blood and broken skin like lullaby,
memorized like standardized answers then rejected
march on March, on tides of silence
pushed back into the ceaseless sea,
the scream of waves a welcome change to regret
—expose your sinew to the cameras and welcome the scorn of studio light
in exchange for an exchange of compromise—
Sing! the bell tolls of revolution
and I bask in the vast, unrelenting grief
bear it so they may lead us into tomorrow,
bear it so they may save us,
bear it so I might save them,
bear it so they might sleep again
these arms will never be enough to bear it all
but I will gladly break to the harmony of their voices,
insistent, eloquent, focused
as they cut the hallway into narrow path,
as they shirk the shackles of history
and forego a future of brief, prescriptive mourning
—they do not repent for they have not sinned,
they do not forgive for none has atoned,
they do not stop—
they set this stillness behind a curtain,
fold it until it fits in the palm,
promise to honor the torment
when movement becomes moment,
becomes signed document, earth shifting
under the stampede of feet
—the sound of metal crashing into disposal bins sounds like
the cheers of children no longer afraid—
but though their ache calls to weary bones,
to empty belly and cold, shaved head,
it cannot gain purchase, not yet,
for the army of their tongues is rising to meet long shadows,
their rage the only light that can quell such darkness
—and I will follow until you have time
to feel all that we have let be done to you,
to be alone and together in your healing,
knowing that you brought peace to the hollow—
Loose your arrows! and let them
fall, let them weep
Alexandra Corinth is a disabled writer and artist based in DFW. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in SWWIM, Glass: Poets Resist,Mad Swirl, Thimble Literary Magazine, and Atticus Review, among others. Her poem, “A Guide for the Visitors of Solovetsky Monastery” was chosen as a top 10 winner of the Writer’s Garret’s 2018 Common Language Project. She is also an editorial assistant for the Southwest Review. You can find her online at typewriterbelle.com.