There Is a Street Named for Martin Luther King, Jr. In Every City by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib

There Is a Street Named for Martin Luther King, Jr. In Every City

by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib

For Joe Bart

especially the ones where blood sprints / from a black chest to color the earth / a darkened brown / the color of a black mother's skin / if she knew what it was to be alive / in the old south / if she knew what it was / to rock on the porch in the southern heat / until her babies made it home for dinner / if she made her skin a bed / for all of the sun's eager children / until her own ...