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The Boston Tea Party Reenactment: On December 16, 2023, Boston will commemorate the 250th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. |
I was not prepared for how horrifying it feels to be Black
and suddenly so pro-British. the desire to don a red coat,
fingers itching to clutch a cartridge of ball and black powder.
to lift a loyalist musket to shoulder and beset Boston Common
or Lexington Green. the feeling even brother Crispus could catch
a hot one were he to cross between Congress and State Streets today.
if crows assemble in a quiet murder, and ravens collect
in a tranquil unkindness, what is a mass of frenzied
white men? a mob, a riot, does so little justice.
have you seen it? the screaming “sons of liberty”— these boys
proud in their covered faces, heads feathered and mohawked
more than wearing tri-cornered hats. the ecstatic storming
from a speech past ill-armed guards, hands aflame with torches.
have you seen it? fists, feet, bars, and axes shattering brown
box heads, spilling loose leaf blood into the Harbor’s once
placid waves. white rage decrying oppression through
$1.7 million in adjusted destruction, hoping to make america
great. again, I am shocked how the echoes are almost enough
to make me holler, “Long Live King George!”
Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of six collections, including the Colored page and The Third Renunciation. He is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal and an associate poetry editor at Pidgeonholes and Rise Up Review. The 2023 winner of the Solstice Literary Magazine Stephen Dunn Prize, MEH is an educator who received his MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. You can find him at www.MEHPoeting.com writing about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground.