by James Schwartz
What are you studying?
My Amish father peers at my homework,
History—Martin Luther King Jr.
“We are to be separate from the World,”
Dad explains our Michigan segregation,
Why no Amish men marched with King,
15 years before my birth,
150 miles away in Detroit,
Down Woodward Avenue,
“Walk to Freedom.”
But we did not walk, never hearing,
His psalm of brotherhood.
James Schwartz is a poet & author of various poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (Kindle, 2011), Punatic (Writing Knights Press, 2019) & most recently Motor City Mix, Sunset in Rome (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He resides in Detroit, Michigan.