What a Poem Cannot Do
Is prepare a lynching. It cannot intercept the man,
woman, or child as they make their way home.
It cannot drag them from that home,
heels in the dirt, body contorting with fear. It cannot
find a rope corded and coarse enough
to hold the knot, to hold the weight.
A heavy rope.
It cannot find the rope to make the noose,
nor find a tree with branches high enough,
thick enough. It cannot find a tree healthy enough
to accommodate the sudden plummet of death.
It cannot be the mob, tossing the rope.
Necklacing the rope. It cannot hoist the rope and keep it taut
while the body is fraught and then stiff
and then limp and sodden. It cannot be the fluid
that runs down the leg of the body
nor the bulging eyes, the slobber and the spittle.
It cannot be the mob watching the body, heavy as coal.
Dangling like earrings. It cannot burn,
blowtorch, and brand the bodies.
It cannot be the smiling and cheering of the mob.
It cannot be a father, lifting his child up
onto his shoulders for a better view.
It cannot be the flash of light and cough of the old camera.
It cannot be the postcards later sold as keepsakes,
nor the colorful carnival float,
decorated with streamers and balloons,
that parades the body through town.
A poem cannot snatch Mary Turner in the night.
It cannot feel the heat of her blood,
nor douse her clothes in gasoline.
It cannot reach deep inside
and wrench the child from her.
It cannot be the heel of a boot
that crushes eight months of life.
It cannot tell her, Now you will never be
your mother, praying on your knees in the dirt.
It cannot carry the body home in a sack
or decapitate the body with a firewood axe.
It cannot drive a stake through the head and place the stake
into the ground on a well-traveled road. It cannot leave the head there
until the sun or the birds or the vermin have their way.
Notes:
“All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here - a lynching. But we will WIN!”
—Donald Trump on Twitter, October 22, 2019
Source: Poetry (July/August 2021)