Take a Knee

by stephanie roberts

for Colin Kaepernick

Uncle Wade (that stubborn mule), grumbled
“Round them up!”
In what direction? I wondered.
The cane teams of the Caribbean?
or way back
to the cup and knuckle
of Gold Continent and trace origin.
“He’s half white.” I say, spitting cherry seed
against our worn bleached deck
a hard tear dark
hungry for soil’s soft capture.
Tired of the clip of this luxury of bile speech
tainting purple mountain
like the flagrant
spread of fall manure.
I knee down my throat lump of protest
thinking what is more American than that?

stephanie roberts has work featured or forthcoming, this year, in Reunion: The Dallas Review, The Stockholm Review of Literature, Room Magazine (Canada), Shooter Literary Magazine (UK), Burning House Press (UK), Rat’s Ass Review, The Inflectionist Review, After the Pause, The Thing Itself, Nano Text an anthology published by Medusas’s Laugh Press (as a contest finalist) and elsewhere. In 2016, she was a top ten finalist in Causeway Lit‘s fall poetry contest, and her work was featured in The New Quarterly, Blue Lyra Review, Contemporary Verse 2, and Breakwater Review. She grew up in Brooklyn, NY.

Photo credit: Miyukiutada via a Creative Commons license.