Elegy headline

The gravity of it
inescapable and
I thought when I slept under
the roof of my childhood house this
weight would take its shoes off
at the door
hang up its coat and
excuse itself to the basement.

Even the construct of home
is pulled apart by this.
We weren’t meant to sleep
well tonight,
how many sleepless nights
waiting for paralysis to break
sleepless people counting
sheep until other voices come of age.

Standing on the steps of the precinct in 2016
listening and shaking my neck
vigorously as if
the movement of my head in
rhythm with this crowd could
somehow dedicate my breath
to the decades of this institutional
inequity.

Where was this matter
yesterday? It’s here now
standing on the steps of the city
snatching echoes from Ferguson
from Selma and Chicago
from decades from centuries
of voices charred by fires and
bleeding out.
Surrounded by idle bystanders
these voices howl power.

By M. Wright

Biography:

M. Wright is a writer and full-time graduate student. He received his bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Minnesota and is the winner of Weisman Art Museum’s Poetry ArtWords 2015 contest. His poems have recently been published in Ivory Tower, Pilcrow & Dagger, and the Saint Paul Almanac. In 2017 he will be one of the 24 featured poets in the Saint Paul Almanac’s “Impressions Project” series.