war[k]nock

"The other day, because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick
somebody else's cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United
States senator.” —Raphael Warnock, 1st Black Senator of Georgia, 2021 January 06

his mother's hands
picked someone else's cotton
slave to harsh lands
whose ills are ill-forgotten
today she casts
a ballot for her free son
amidst sharp blasts
of senate-censored treason

her ebon songs
of childhood disenchantment
have simmered long
where mercy has been transient
perhaps the chains
that shackled once her ankles
hold new refrains
for lips pain no more strangles

her naked breasts
milched by blanc thieving fingers
stir new protests
where curd no longer lingers
a senate man
rising from cotton remnants
defeats the plan
of confed’rate assailants

to violate
the rights of freedom nations
to kill the hate
that thrives on blood oblations
a war-[k]nock sense
of peace breaks now time’s shackles
where self-defense
once chafed ‘neath hate’s loud cackles

© Copyright 2021 January 06
by Clyve A. Bowen♫