Inauguration Day
By Linda Parsons
I’m bleeding
I’m bleeding
on the sheet and pillow not
my monthlies so many moons gone.
On the sheet a red thread
unraveled
in sleep stain hardened to rub and soap.
I bleed
like a girl the coldest winter I’ve known
splits skin streaks
my pillow sheet pulled to my chin.
I’m bleeding
for my daughters and granddaughters
soft bodies
sold in the marketplace
the coldest coin
I’ve known. All of us
dying
in moons to come
sheets pulled to our chins bloodied red.
Won’t someone breathe
soft on our skin
lift stains from winter’s cold
bed? I cannot bear
the weight my skin sacrificial
torn loose these longest of nights.
Daughters, granddaughters,
bear this dark day. Rage rage curse
the draining of light.
I bleed
for this blue and red
gash of country, for the drums
beating past
Lincoln’s feet. Let the streets run
with girls still believing let
their birthright
burn white heat.
Only bright day
will wash our bodies past broken
belief blood in its mercy
rubbed clean. Only then will we break
this cold bargain,
until then
you will see
how I bleed.
Poet, playwright, essayist, and editor, Linda Parsons is the poetry editor for Madville Publishing and the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee. She is published in such journals as The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, Terrain, The Chattahoochee Review, Shenandoah, and many others. Her sixth collection is Valediction: Poems and Prose. Five of her plays have been produced by Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Photo by Haberdoedas on Unsplash.
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