In the Tulsa you’ve forgotten

(I know
the ground still remembers)—That day

you watched
as guns made the sound of many 
doors closing.

A mother wandered through the fire 
of bullet and loose-lipped slur,

after a small child (dressed both 
in smoke and panic). You hoped

your voice would raise 
faster than the shells

if only to ask her what use? You watched 

as several bodies, dislodged
from a building aflame, ran

from chaos to chaos. A mother, 

sunk knee-deep
in prayer (she will
never rise), while an elderly man waned

with a trunk on his back 
(as heavy as his own
life), holding all he owned. You watched

as a woman gave birth
(too soon), the infant joining the many gone 
silent. You watched
as that town became

the tree shaking off all of the dead—


and the ground remembers.
In a place where grass only grows 
slowly now. The ground became


nothing more
than a page that holds

(this memory).
You are never

allowed to forget.

Read more from Issue 18.2.