Yesenia Montilla is an Afro-Latina poet & translator. Her poetry has appeared in The Wide Shore, Prairie Schooner, and others. She received her MFA from Drew University in poetry & poetry in translation and is a CantoMundo Fellow. The Pink Box is published by Willow Books and was long-listed for the Pen Open Book Award 2016.
Muse Found In South Carolina
*
Unarmed black man shot again
& it took me a moment to swallow
:: officer charged with murder ::
Because gravity is still working just fine & it ain’t the end of the world
birds are still chirping as if nothing done gone wrong for a white man
& I wanna holler hallelujah!
Celebrating in my bed with champagne &
slow whistles escaping through my teeth
maybe I shouldn’t be all fucking uppity about it
maybe I shouldn’t celebrate reprimand
a black man is still dead again
**
Lately, I am a slow burning bourbon in the throat, horrified at my own bitterness,
so I am going to build a shrine with my soot-filled heart to the hero in this story
Feidin, sauntering about being canopied from the sun by trees without eyes —
I won’t forget your name I will always remember you
recording a black man running away
& getting
shot
in the back
thank you for staying & capturing humanity at its worse
***
& to the grass
thank you for how you cradled Walter’s body
& soaked up his final heaving breaths —