I watch the blood of dawn
spread wildfire blade
wondering what the last
Sun of home was
that my ancestors saw
Me, in the hold of a plane
breaching the West African coast
the plane wings read
No step No step
if steel wings
require no treading upon
a poem is where you return
when you realize
more than the body needs rest
I wonder if the gazelles
broke their rhythm
I wonder if the wiggling wings of birds
became so heavy
that they roamed aimlessly?
I wonder if the trees withheld
harvest from the confusion
of lost greetings
Did the sickle cry out
for the hands that held it?
It’s -22 degrees at this altitude
18 minutes from Casablanca
I wish the blood of dawn
would spread wildfire blade
across America
It’s always night in America
The morning never comes
The mourning never ends.
African clouds are
smooth like God
made the bed and ran
His hands
across the sheets
The sad African sun births
itself from night
reminding us that it saw
and it remembers.
Deaundra Jackson is a 2023 MFA in Writing graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. Her work centers marginalized voices of the past. She was a 2023 Diversities and Diasporas Fellow of the Global Diversity Foundation. She has been published in The Raven’s Perch, Aunt Chloe Literary Magazine, Rising Phoenix Review, and Beyond the Sea: An Eber & Wein Anthology. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia and enjoys hummingbird watching and music festivals.
