circa January 20, 2009
Some were perched on the limbs
Of D.C. trees to get a glimpse of it,
History being made, once again,
In the middle of so much black & white,
To hear Aretha spin her rhythm with
Our blues into a hymn where hymns
Had never been made, up close.
All that colored hope collected on
White ballots, dreamed on Jim Crow nights,
Birthed in the belly of a red, white & blue sale,
Hope stolen off the coast of Africa,
Hope chained to a tree in the Florida heat,
Hope purchased at a Galveston, Texas
Auction block, hope sold down a river
In Charleston, hope traded for a
Race horse in Missouri, hope terrorized
By white hoods in Alabama, hope raped
In Georgia, hope lynched & mutilated
At fourteen in Mississippi, hope
Assassinated on a balcony in Tennessee,
Hope in a Virginia slave preacher’s
Revolt, hope from the Carolinas to the
Slave holding shores of Maryland. We came
To hold this truth to be self-evident that
All Negroes are created equal to the forty-forth
President of the United States of America.
Latorial Faison’s poems have been selected for publication in Prairie Schooner, Obsidian, Stonecoast Review, About Place Journal, Deep South Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Mandala Journal, The Chattahoochee Review, and elsewhere. This 2018 winner of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid poetry prize is also a 2019 Furious Flower Poetry Center fellow. Faison, who studied English at UVA and VA TECH, is a military spouse and mother; she teaches at Virginia State University.
