Soon the sun-backed stars
Focus into view. My mother,
The pull of clean day,
Packed away into suitcases.
Night shuffles its shoulders
Into place and headlocks
Our city, fractured only by
Blazes and broken glass
Embedded in thoughts
Shouldering rubber bullets;
They are blurred by
Haze, my eyes windshield
Wipers clotted with
Rain. I find myself
Searching past the scornfully
Strewn media posts,
Diving down beneath
The epitaphs of sooted
Screens. Names remain
Sloshed around in
Buckets brimming with
Apologies, embracing the
Hallowed hashtag as though
Clinging to words will
Bring divine meaning.
So many expect the world
To be anointed by this
Bruised oil, for the sins
Of history to be forever
Purged– today,
These three black
Nights have shone
Their darkness on
The world, concentrated
Into slick puddles.
Their names still
Ride in with the
Rolling waves,
Flow out with the
Ebbing tide:
Arbery.
Taylor.
Floyd.
Sophia Rose Smith is the People Editor for her high school’s newspaper, The MVHS Oracle, and the Editor-in-Chief of Binsey Poplar Press. When she’s not writing, she spends her time volunteering as a docent for her local history museum, practicing calligraphy, and drinking too much earl grey tea. Her writing has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, California Federation of Chaparral Poets, and Schola Cantorum’s poetry-to-music program, among others.