How to Love a Country by Richard Blanco

Author:Richard Blanco [Blanco, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Beacon Press

EASY LYNCHING ON HERNDON AVENUE

What I’d rather not see isn’t here: no rope,

no black body under a white moon swaying

limp from a tree, no bloodied drops of dew

on the twenty-first of March 1981. That’s

in another photo, like a dozen other photos

I’ve gaped at wanting—not wanting—to turn

away from the snapped necks of the hanged,

and the mob’s smug smirks, asking myself

How could they? Why? Questions not here,

not in this photo—a crisp and tranquil snapshot

—murder washed out by time, history

left uncaptured. What’s left now is easier

on our eyes: only pale morning light seeping

blue into the sky—a backdrop to the necks

of tree boughs bowing like swans, innocent

of any crime on Herndon Avenue, pictured like

any other street: clean sidewalks (no blood),

utility poles strung with wires (no rope), a few

pavement cracks (no broken-boned body).

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