by Jim Burns
For John Lewis, 1940-2020
Bloody Sunday, Bloody Sunday,
we looked away this year,
and now its gone, but…
we looked away this year,
and now its gone, but…
The spirits waft out of the fog
on nights moist and sultry
as sweet summer sex
and meet at the bridge
they can’t forget.
See them now,
John Lewis, Hosea Williams,
alive again and young,
Moseses leading their people
across the Red Sea
to the Promised Land,
leading 1200 moving feet
across the Alabama River,
a moccasin
cold and poisonous
glistening in the moonlight
below those 1200 feet marching
to the other side,
the other side where
their tormentors,
cold and poisonous too,
wait in the mist,
spectral figures,
mean-faced troopers with billies
and rearing horses with bulging eyes,
waiting to make this Judgment Day.
Why do these phantoms gather
to cry again
from the sting of gas
as if their tears hadn’t fallen
for centuries before,
to bleed again
as if they had never bled
from the crack of batons
across heads bowed in prayer?
They climb up from their graves
until someday they reach
that other side.
Jim Burns was born and raised in rural Indiana and spent most of his working life as a librarian. Now retired, he turned to a long held interest in writing, and has had poems published by Eucalyptus Review, Skipjack Review, Rainy Weather Days, and others. He lives with wife and dog in Jacksonville, Florida.
