Take down
the stars and bars,
the Confederate
battle flag that flies,
over the Capitol
in Charleston.
And take down
the Confederate
veterans' monument
and the statue of the white
supremacist who was once
governor and senator
that stand nearby.
Then take down all
the vestiges of slavery,
every fiber and every stone,
every hair-thin remnant
of that terrible time
until not a rootlet remains
in any city or town.
But when the symbols of racism
are all cleared away, taken down
carried off and finally
gone: How to remove
the lingering hatred
from a grown man’s heart?
Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer. He studied poetry at Boston University, while receiving a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science, magna cum laude, and won a silver medal in the New England University Wrestling Championship at 177 lbs. Gil received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as an elected Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Gil’s poems have been published recently in The New Verse News, Clark Street Review, The Penman Review, The Antarctica Journal, Third Wednesday, The Potomac, The Zodiac Review and To Hold A Moment Still, Harbinger Asylum’s 2014 Holidays Anthology.