O say can you
Si se puede
I am the woman
who will not bow down
but kneel;
will not seal her eyes
but stay woke.
Can you see
there are jackboots & torches outside the door?
Swastikas & AmeriKLan hoods?
Help me pry up the floorboards of this safe house.
We are all under attack.
“Black. Queer. Trans. Jew.
I deserve equal rights &
refugees & immigrants do too.”
Adorned in coronas of kink
we march through roadways,
block traffic
beating drums
blowing whistles
chanting,
“No ban. No wall. Sanctuary for us all.”
O
I.C.E. I.C.E. baby
Can you see this irreparable harm?
The dismantling of the Constitution outside Terminal 4?
O cops
frozen inside your helmets
grasping batons
Hands up, don’t shoot!
Be humble. Sit down.
Now is the time to drop your weapon
Kneel with us on the tarmac & killing field
as we set our knees against the wheel
grinding our humanity to dust
O Allah akbar
Can you see
us
the soul of America?
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Charlotte Watson Sherman was born in Seattle, the eldest in a working class family. She has published poetry in Obsidian, The Black Scholar, Obsidian II, Painted Bride Quarterly, Permafrost, and Gathering Ground: New Writing and Art by Northwest Women of Color. KNEEL appeared in different form in the group exhibition, “Manifesto: A Modest Proposal,” at Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont, CA., January 20-March 29, 2018. Sherman has published a collection of short fiction, Killing Color (Calyx, 1992) and edited the anthology Sisterfire: Black Womanist Fiction and Poetry (HarperCollins, 1994). She’s also the author of other books from HarperCollins: the novels One Dark Body (1993) and touch (1995), and the children’s book Eli and the Swamp Man (1996). Her muse is history. The task of healing and reconciling the past propels the writing. Her tools: word, image, ritual, dream, magic.
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