Colleen J McElroy

PRISM

      For Sandra Bland

and you were out of place
driving down a tree lined street
humming hey bop-a-re-bop
you could smell success
falling with every leaf
easy cruising
around the corner
humming still
bop-a-re-bop when
on the other side of the intersection
the temperature changed inside
reflector shades and thin skin
hard wired with idiot chip 
what was left coated a two-lane strip
a skein of dust stirred by any car pedestrian 
a beige cloud choking exhaust
a layer a scree of where
you had been blocking
colors true to life
the dust that never settles

THE GEOGRAPHY THAT MADE ME

you can sit in that chair but don't get too comfortable
preacher’s coming soon
    rules everywhere like Burma Shave little jingle rhymes
    spoken unwritten so to know when to step lightly

banned from Georgia for not asking for a Mister Baby Ruth

that side of the family never forgave you

papa’s collection of leather bound classics
the best reading spot at the window seat
    every Christmas the featured movie A Wonderful Life    
colored folks at the Antioch Theater laughed out loud

four little black birds sitting on a fence
    trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents
     hand clap jump rope get up and go 

how come Bo Jangles couldn’t teach one of us to dance?

you need to eat a peck of dirt before you die
dirt was never rationed
    enough prairie dirt for a kitchen garden
      headed west for the mountains and the sea

got so gentrified couldn’t remember bid whist rules
always the favorite bid: no trumps
     Aretha and Nina satisfied troubled minds
     soul train offered blues and romance double time

back when I was a colored girl my hair 
was fried Madame CJ Walker if you please
              learned to say black is beautiful
               social unrest they called it

people all over the world join in

not all cops fit stereotypes
only highway patrol wears aviator shades
     customs officers forever asking: 
     why you going there? There not being Africa

middle aged British women in sensible shoes
women from New York boroughs simply confused
     saw Sarah Vaugh in Germany
     all decked out in furs and such – beautiful

gadgets now – thumbs working overtime
bright young things talk longitude and latitude of codes
      history happened BM: before me young ones say

eighty years an eternity when you’re twenty a minute ago

drifting in  hyperspace all that connecting
no need to parse sentences all 
      eyes are on smart phones
      blind to the rest of the world

ham bone ham bone where you been
round the world and I’m going again

crows fight mid-flight
their caws contentio  
      against traffic
      man and weather whatever 

Jacob’s wheel churning the same mud
       hear them dance jim crow folks said
       Disney bankroll more like it

this road too narrow too hard to offer
punctuation – everything runs together
      repeated ad nauseum and none the wiser
      same old biases different tailor

sit-in to protest to demonstrate to riot
        what difference the name
        when nothing adds up

from chaos come
knock knock knocking

Colleen J. McElroy lives in Seattle, Washington. Winner of the Before Columbus American Book Award for Queen of the Ebony Isles, McElroy’s collection of poems, including Here I Throw Down My Heart, (finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award, the Walt Whitman Award, the Phyllis Wheatley Award, and the Washington State Governor’s Book Award, and Blood Memory (finalist for the 2017 Paterson Poetry Prize).  Push Comes to Shove is forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press.