by Jeremy Nathan Marks
It rained hard the night of April 3rd
Memphis was under a tornado warning
thunder was heard among the congregation
I looked to the sky for smoke
for fire, the waters already had
parted.
Dr. King was in town to remind
the world that we are all one
how the arc of the moral universe
Is long.
The next night: April 4th
King died on a motel balcony
blood, breath, and bullet
He was about to go and break
bread, but this would not be
his last supper
When the motel clerk was told
Call an ambulance
he expired right there of cardiac arrest.
A clerk’s shock, our shock
everywhere the sound of that
fatal round
Rabbi Heschel, the great teacher
Talmudic scholar and King’s good friend
said God searches for us
What happens to thee happens to me.
I am thinking of this tonight
since our High Court said
the fight for equal rights has
a racist intent
In the sky the Drinking Gourd
dips into the cosmos
but whose cup runneth over—
Jeremy Nathan Marks lives among the Great Lakes of North America. His latest prose and poetry appears/will appear in Studio One, Mobius, Flash Flood Magazine, Dissident Voice, Right Hand Pointing, and Fifty Word Stories.