Alexandra Corinth

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 SWWIMGlass: Poets Resist,Mad SwirlThimble 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.