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"Untitled" by Prachi Valechha

For My Old Breonna Home by Truth Thomas

In my fetal curl, I’m still pierced
              by points of lead,

              firing through Kentucky’s
              no-knock early morn,

singing lines of death from arias
              of smoke, battering

              ram timpani, an entourage
              of one. One, subtracted

from the lover’s binary, Bluegrass
              census ink, breath-

              less as a choke.
              In my crimson pose,

their plain-clothed hoofs still derby
              through my door.

              AND they’re off:
              City of Bullets, out

quickly. Country of Rounds, fighting
              for the inside.

              It’s Bullets. It’s Rounds.
              Bullets. Rounds.

It’s Murder coming up from the rear.
              It’s Murder by a mile --

              call it what it is.
              Slave patrol jockeys,

chasing toe tag trophies, champagne
              glassing the warrantless

              race --warrantless,
              as Kenny, cuffed to tears,


being marched down the barking streets.
              Long after their shells

              made me know rivers,
              I feel my fingers

slip from the life raft of his hand. Grip
              strength trumped

              by cooling board tug, I
               sink into hallway

floor, waterway now, timeless tributary
              to slaughtered tides.

              I see bayous teaming
              with cotton gin fans,

Emmett beaten into death’s deep dive,
              streams of Blands

              and Bikos, in chilly
              arrest of the wet. I see

oceans of Arberys, crossing with me,
              swimming in crucified

              schools — Valenzuela
              and Boyd, numberless

Floyds, I see we are the sea — bottomless,
              as our moans, that carry

              like currents
              of whale songs.

TRUTH THOMAS is a singer-songwriter and poet, born in Knoxville, Tennessee, raised in Washington, DC. His poetry collections include Party of Black (2006), A Day of Presence (2008), Bottle of Life (2010) and Speak Water (2012), winner of the 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry.

Prachi Valechha is a freelance cartoonist and animator from India. Valechha loves to make Toons and Toons for Tunes.
You can find more of their work at: instagram.com/rainbowteeth
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