July/August 2024

The winter I leave him, I ask my parents to consider me
their oldest son. To bend the rules.
I could be a little tree, late to flourish,
focused on my underground career.
I tell them to buy me a house.
They’re 15 years divorced....

                    Mother
Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church Nine
Senior pastor state senator
Name meaning “merciful”
Church eldress, oldest to be shot
Great grandnephew tries to shield her
        First and youngest shot
College administrator and pastor
        Doctor her last name not a title
Sunday school teacher
Track coach and pastor
Librarian
Church sexton
Seventy-four-year-old pastor

Two played...

It was not a question of not having the language for it—
having two, in fact. The walking towards it,
and then the walking away. How that felt, all the green
gathering itself to the idea of green, lingering
right at the edge of...