After

By Calida Osti

You can’t cover it in snow. It will seep through and turn into muddy slush and
slide into your neighbors’
third story windows
right past the new
drapes they ordered from amazon.com.

You can’t redecorate it or rename it and think that will work new
names are old names.

It isn’t new.
It can’t be washed
away and drained
in a claw-
footed tub even if you dose the tub in kerosene after.

It isn’t okay
to watch and say nothing as long as you are not
the one
slurring  touching  burning.

It isn’t ignorance. You can’t get rid of
it by reading any books          they say
maybe Harry Potter, but what if
the reader burns the book after?

It isn’t heritage. You can’t
shoot it through the back of a black boy and then pick it up and wave it around. Should it be
burned                                                                                       after?

Calida Osti is currently enrolled in Lindenwood University’s creative writing M.F.A. program.  She lives in West Lafayette, IN, with her fiancée, Kaylah. You can check her out on Instagram or Twitter at @rawr_lida or by visiting www.calidaosti.com.

Photo credit: Jc Olivera via a Creative Commons license.