George Floyd gasped – as Eric Garner gasped – alone under the boot of a pale man

                 The mosquitoes are so terrible after all the rain

Minneapolis burns precinct by precinct by 3 then by 5 – on 31^st street and Nicollet Ave

                   Today there was record heat, so of course our air conditioner quit

Keisha Bottoms, soul of Atlanta, roars “this is not a protest”

                    My mango trees stopped giving fruit this year

Hate flows from a white house refracted back through the incandescent lights of a Target

                     A bougainvillea thorn ripped my favorite dress

These disparate worlds have not aligned, but I feel them heave and begin to collide.

                                                                As the hate draws closer,

                                                                I feel the heat on my face

                                                                as it burns we bear the pain –

                                                                scream dissent into the hurricane

Colleen Finlan  (c) 2020