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Blue Marble Review

Literary Journal for Young Writers

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Three Black Nights in the USA

By Sophia Rose Smith

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.

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Issue Nineteen

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