Weeping for What Was Stolen

A Ribcage after Athena Liu

we’ve been taught to ignore foreign blood, death, displaced

[flesh]

laid out nameless as numbers & covered in shrouds

[pressed]

wrinkle-free, pristine before all that life seeped in

[to]

the grain of its fabric, the streets, a mother’s arms

[warm]

and weeping for what was stolen, stained a shade of

[grief]

that will never come out no matter how it’s washed

[stained]

black folk poured onto pavement beneath a blue knee–

[deep]

bruise spread like a table for repass; we don’t eat

[like] 

the brown bodies who broke past border, forced to up-

[root]

self from homeland for safety only to find myth

[made]

the american dream less bullet riddled, more

[home]

sweet home, but it smells bitter here, everyone is

[sick]  

flesh pressed to warm grief, stained deep like root made homesick

Note: A ribcage is a poetic form invented by poet, Athena Liu, consisting of 24 lines alternating between 12-syllable lines and a monosyllabic word in brackets. At the end of the text, the bracketed words — or spine — are read from top to bottom.