Elijah Elvin
dear God this is George¹
mama told me I’m gon’ meet you soon she said
you’re the real judge in my life don’t fear them rude men in suits
papa also told me remember what pastor said I miss her apple pies
isaiah 40:30-31 dear Charles despair is a tool of oppression
revelation 19:11 I pray your soul adheres to
romans 6:22 dear Aimé don’t let this world take your faith
1 thessalonians 5:8 I pray hope onto your spirit
ephesians 6:12 dear Katherine merciful resilience of your will
proverbs 16:3 I pray for evil to leave our home
life for me and mine forever abnormal
a redress
my liberty stripped naked in your blood lust
forced to ingest a devil’s pie covered in guilt
confessions of crimes I never did down a dream’s storage
can I hold my family’s hands again in heaven away from
gusts of empty soulless hate these past 70
mornings
dear Governor Johnston each word I’ve spoken slurs
each line you made me cross blurs you took my life
with no hesitancy not a finger’s shiver not even a lip’s quiver
my heart wants to haunt you dazzle in your spilled blood
as I watch it curdle curse the sergeant curse the lieutenant
curse the colonel mama can’t calm me now curse your amendments
it ain’t stopping until you beg on your knees for generations with
atonement may your soul’s steel doors
a feel the wrath of
a a Black boy’s
a American journal.
¹George Stinney, a 14-year-old African-American boy from South Carolina, was wrongfully executed for the murders of 2 young white girls in 1944. He is the youngest American with an exact birth date to be sent to death row and executed in the 20th century.
Elijah Elvin is in his junior year at Weinberg, with a Black Studies major and a Creative Writing minor in the Poetry Sequence.
