CLAIRE PINKSTON
Blue Monday: Annie Lee
the window carves blank crosses
into my mother’s pin-curled hair
but she doesn’t take them out yet.
her heartbeat is the train’s whistle
although she knows she is going nowhere
and the walls vibrate with the sound–
the foundation has always been war and
when the wind quiets, the old bones hum still
outside the white women have begun
to cry end of the world. the night is
a rain of flat fish, and my mother’s
hands the only constant: red,
cupped, empty. in this dream,
her name is still Pinkston.
on the other shore, a white man
steps into a ring of teeth.
the calendar reads 1619 and screams
wordlessly. it also has fists,
but doesn’t use them very much anymore.
don’t worry. this, too, is an apology.
Claire Pinkston is a seventeen-year-old biracial Black poet and writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has been previously recognized at the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and is forthcoming for publication at Ice Lolly Review. She is growing along with her poetry. Find her @clairespoet on Twitter!