Deborah Turner
Wipe Out
“Sandy shores don’t bind us,”
paddling out over fish and sea-
weeds, rising high, crashing down—
sun and wind mined.
“Boards keep us afloat.
Try it out, the water’s fine.”
America said to its niggers who
made music, championed sports, rendered literature colorful. “Pleasing,
so delightful to eyes, ears.”
Until we upset the balance, ventured
in too deep—uncharted space,
ivory heights, think tanks, the front office
and that oval one.
The next wave, choppy, reigned:
“You don’t belong here.
Maneuver the Board so the curl covers corporal entities.” Not unlike
when sheriffs once paused, shifting power
to hooded masses
with eye holes too small to question.
“You don’t belong here.
So we’ll melt caps, ride resulting swells—
down Wall street, main street,
shaded campus walks—
wipe out the peppered panorama
(meant purely for us).”
Long has history, with its last word,
extended the Board, only
to take it back from curious jetsam
in every fishy tale.
Will time forget our names,
or hook them up on lines (long as trees tall)
from which to hang, if we—
remembering Tuskegee all too well—
rise with the next tide,
ask the question.
Did you do this
on purpose?
—Submitted on 03/27/2020
Deborah Turner is the author of Sweating It Out (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Lavender Reader, Philadelphia Stories, and the anthologies Testimony: Young African-Americans on Self-Discovery and Black Identity (Beacon Press, 1995), edited by Natasha Tarpley, and The Body Eclectic (Henry Holt, 2002), edited by Patrice Vecchione. Online at deborahturner.online.
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