PoetBay.com, the poetry webpage where you can publish your poems and short stories

The Battle Wages On

The old south remains,
the “flag” ensconced in memory,
racism steeped in sweet tea,
in calls that “white lives matter”
as if they ever didn’t.

Skeletons live in red mud,
no markers speak their names,
yet some will fight with fury,
demand history be remembered,
wreaths laid for statued images.

“Heritage” is a code word
for hate, deflecting truth.
The bones of all,
both slave and soldier
look the same now,
the skin that divided,
gone.

Racism lives on…
in redlined streets breathing toxic air,
a desert for nourishment,
where mothers die in higher numbers
and children learn in underfunded rooms,
in districts drawn to dilute their vote,
in prisons full of brown bodies
that survived the knee, the gun, the badge.

The war is long over.
The battles wage on.

Poetry by Melinda K Zarate