WEIGHT

by Judith Terzi

Emmett Louis Till was kidnapped, lynched and brutally murdered at age 14 on August 28, 1955.

"Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor."—John Lewis, New York Times, July 30, 2020

Emmett Till shot dead at fourteen. Two men go free.
George Floyd suffocated at forty-six. By a brutal knee.

          George ran out of breath. Suffocated at age forty-six.
          They sank Emmett, strapped him to a cotton gin fan.

No gun to sink George. No river, no machine, no tree.
Simeon Wright saw the men point the gun at Emmett.

          Saw the men point the gun, pull his cousin from bed.
          His words weightless against the two men's. No video

then. The world saw the cop's knee press into George.
Saw three more cops. Over eight minutes of complicity.

          Four cops. Eight ears sealed shut for over eight minutes.
          Sixty-five years gone by since Emmett lost his breath.

Three months passed since George no longer breathes.
Emmett Till shot dead at fourteen. Two men go free.


Author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay), as well as of five chapbooks, including Casbah and If You Spot Your Brother Floating By (Kattywompus), Judith Terzi's poems have received Pushcart and Best of the Web and Net nominations and have been read on Radio 3 of the BBC. She holds an M.A. in French Literature and taught high school French for many years as well as English and French at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria.

DEMENTIA TEST

by Gus Peterson

Person, woman, man, camera, TV.
A thousand names written off today.
Now who will speak for me?

Phase-10. Skip-Bo. Niece, giver, EMT.
Eight shots. No more cards to play.
Person, woman, man, camera, TV.

Mentor. Driver. Athlete. Father, see:
he took a knee. Nothing more to say.
Who will speak for me?

In Portland, Chicago, New York, DC:
the unnamed, the masked, gassed away.
Person, woman, man, camera, TV.

George. Tamir. Trayvon. Sandra. Bre.
No one said their names today.
Please, someone speak to me.

Thoughts come, they stay, they flee.
A thousand more names to say.
Person, woman, man, camera, TV:
speak for us. We can’t breathe.


Gus Peterson lives in Maine.

BREATHING LESSONS

by Mary K O'Melveny

“Can’t breathe” by Hong Kong artist Benson Koo at society6.

I CAN’T BREATHE

said Eric Garner, his loosies scattered
like toothpicks on the street, his chest
and neck compressed, his body battered,
then prone, as Daniel Pantaleo pressed
down harder until nothing mattered,
leaving questions for some later inquest.

WE CAN’T BREATHE

said Hong Kong protesters whose lungs
filled with tear gas as police fired
more cannisters and aimed their guns
toward their hearts, hoping they would grow tired
of trying to imagine worlds of other suns
where democracy was still admired.

THEY CAN’T BREATHE

said medics in hospital rooms, as patients
arrived in great numbers, gasping for air
while tobacco CEOs made deals in spacious
office suites for vaping products, aware
that regulations are slim and use contagious,
betting as usual that not enough would care.

SHE CAN’T BREATHE

said the driver who found a woman walking
alone on the roadway as Paradise fires raged,
her car abandoned long before, tires melting.
From his pickup, too hot to touch, he gauged
the odds of rescue and the dangers of stalking
cinders, then leapt out—one catastrophe assuaged.

THEY CAN’T BREATHE

said migrants still floating on choppy seas
about fellow travelers catapulted overboard
flailing, then sinking, while they watched with unease.
They had prayed to gods when they climbed aboard
these flimsy rafts and trembling skiffs. Those pleas
have thinned to terror as they continue seaward.

HE CAN’T BREATHE

said the mother whose wheezing child
struggled for each breath in and out,
while methane gas levels went wild
and fossil fuel fumes expanded throughout
their Appalachian hills. Even with their air defiled.
some still said there’s nothing to worry about.

WE CAN’T BREATHE

said Southeast Asian villagers choking in heat
and smog. Their farmlands cleared for palm oil,
nothing remains to be burned except the peat
which smolders like angry words beneath soil
while carbon fills the air with coppery sleet
and once lush jungles are forever spoiled.

I CAN’T BREATHE

said Mother Earth as Amazonian flames
joined those in Africa and Alaska to devour
her greenest places. As thick forests turned to arid plains
and savannahs, what once were leafy bowers
degraded to dieback deserts. Scientists maintain
some hope but she’s fast losing respiratory powers

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses will be published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.