Originally appeared in the print edition of Locust #8. Splash image by Anupam Roy.
Bigger is the third rail, boiling coffee—Natchez,
Mississippi to Chicago,
magnolias, strike. Toward his family, an attitude
of iron reserve, for which railroad workers strike
a nerve. We the people, many
million in nonconformist labor today
refuse to return to unethical work. Strike!
Invisible as a tree with no standing.
Invisible as war crimes—
overharvested negroes on the front lines
killing other negroes.
Black workers whose fealty you
exploit, object. St. Louis as beeswax, resin
the pigment—encaustic, kept molten on heated
palettes
I.
I.
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