Poem.

At the Corner of Shafer and Grace

Standing at the corner
of Shafer
and Grace
watching
students
walking
black and white
young
men and women
they wouldn't like
me saying
boys and girls,
but they're so
young.

Imagining myself walking
in their shoes
walking in their shoes today
which follows yesterday
the shooting yesterday
and the shooting the day before
of young black men
by police officers
which happened in other cities
that were not this city
to other young men
who were not these
young men.

But how must it be
to see the world
through their eyes today?
Trying not to be afraid.
Trying not to look frightening.
Scenarios playing out
in your head
where everything spins
out of control
in an instant
where you have no
control
can you feel
your heart pounding
in your chest?
can you feel
the fear closing your throat?
can you feel
the anger?
I haven't done anything
I haven't done anything
I haven't done anything

As I write this poem
on this Richmond sidewalk
sweltering heat
rising
from the cement
sun beating down
a young black man
comes up to me
with his friend
and he's just bought
a cell phone
and it doesn't have any pictures
on it
and he doesn't
know how to use it
but he figures it out
and asks
if he can take our picture.
I say yes
and he puts his arm around me.
Brandon.  His name is
Brandon.  My name is
Ellen, I say, as his friend
Brad clicks the picture.

He shows me the picture
of the two of us
together.
Then we part
taking something
of each other with us.
I am in his picture.
He is in my poem.

Be safe
I want to say
but don't.
Should have?
I don't know.
He goes.
Be safe, Brandon.
Be safe.
I don't know what to say.


~E. M. Lewis  //  07 July 2016 // Richmond, VA

Poem 2 - Bitter

We drove all day in the baking sun and all night through deep chocolate dark in my cinnamon-rusted Fairlaine through air that smelled like butter and gooseberries.  The trunk was full of gooseberries we'd picked at your mother's house and didn't know what to do with.  But when she'd asked us to take some before everything rotted out there, we couldn't say no.  We ventured out into the abandoned field, where you never played when you were a kid.  Her grating voice carried down to us, "Pick more!"  She gave us old Cool Whip containers to put them in.  Lots of them.  "How much Cool Whip can the woman eat?" I said, but you didn't laugh.  We picked until our fingers tingled, then drank another beer with her on the porch, then whisked ourselves away from there like we were being chased.  You didn't say much.  So I turned the radio up and rolled the windows down.  And wondered why you'd wanted me to see where you came from.

Poem 1 - Fishing

She dangles her hand down along the battered side of the old row boat.

He's fishing.  He's rowing.  He's catching freshwater lake trout for supper.  He's trying, anyway.

She lets her fingers touch the surface of the cold, cold water and tilts her head back so the sun can lick her throat.

He doesn't say anything about it, as speech and fishing are strange and inappropriate bedfellows in his mind.

She lets the fish nibble drops of salty sweat from her wrist and watches a bald eagle drift in wide circles over the lake and island.

He changes bait from worms to eggs in failed attempts to lure anything in.  He watches the sun settle into the tops of the douglas firs.  He rows them back to the campsite.

"I wasn't hungry for fish anyway," she says.  She smiles as he builds a fire and sets up the tent and rolls out the sleeping bags.  

She catches him.