First Draft
To Dwell in Unity
All morning I’ve been listening to Billie Holiday
cradle Strange Fruit in her arms,
hover over it, sick child,
insisting on a cure
___even as the country dies.
My experience with lynching
___is photographic,
safely haunted, yes, by striped skirt
hanging from the body,
___her last choice, haunted
enough to torment myself,
___but still no victim.
Violator, I have a righteous harvest:
___guilt and power
even in the scales. My eyes are luxury
that cannot be my penance.
Yachad – unity – the psalmist sings,
and how impossibly alike,
carrying the burden of a
hated flesh, serving good
___in the widest sense,
as if there were a way to garner this
damned crop.
_____
Second Draft
To Dwell in Unity
All morning I’ve been listening to Billie Holiday
cradle Strange Fruit in her arms,
hover over it, sick child,
insisting on a cure
___even as the country dies.
My experience with lynching
___is photographic,
safely haunted, yes, by striped skirt
hanging from the body,
___her last choice, haunted
enough to torment myself,
___but still no victim.
Viewing can’t be penance.
Eyes are privilege, so how do I
trade care for body
___not my own?
Yachad – unity – another psalmist sings,
another voice impossibly dry, and I learn what to do.
Carry water to the stage.
Hand it gently up to the sweating woman
angling her jaw to birth these notes
___out right – no midwife, just agony
delivering itself.
_____
Third Draft
To Dwell in Unity
All morning I’ve been listening to Billie Holiday
cradle Strange Fruit in her arms,
hover over it, sick child,
insisting on a cure
___even as the country dies.
My child isn’t in the photograph of victims,
striped skirt hanging
___from the body,
her last choice, haunting
even this safe living room.
Veering into the sweat of it, she births
each note again while I,
traitor outside her pain,
___seek witness that won’t expose her more.
Yachad – unity –
another psalmist sings,
___voice dry, cracked with wilderness.
Chips of ice in a clear glass, all I have
handed gently to the woman on the stage
alone, my hope:
___this is how we’ll be
delivered.