RED SUMMER SUN: CHICAGO 1919
By Eric F. Maxie
No black boy chooses war
He would prefer
Leaves of grass to land mines
To shards of broken glass
A simple place to grind toes to earth
He would float
Aimlessly
Across all imaginary borders
Suspended/the cool lake water
Rising and falling against
His back in waves
Lifting him up into the warm
Summer breeze
From here he could almost see
The future
What the Colombian Exposition had wrought
Floating
Surreal
Without sound
The water in his ears
Serenity
Undermined by stone
He thought the “Great War”
Had been won
I wonder
If they called him Sonny-boy
Or Gene
The ones who would miss him
Or grieve
I wonder if they believed
That his future was
Brighter
As he swallowed the cool water
His stunned eyes/sinking
Below the surface
The streaming blood staining
Spoiling the Great Lake
Mimicking
The Red Summer sky
By Eric F. Maxie
No black boy chooses war
He would prefer
Leaves of grass to land mines
To shards of broken glass
A simple place to grind toes to earth
He would float
Aimlessly
Across all imaginary borders
Suspended/the cool lake water
Rising and falling against
His back in waves
Lifting him up into the warm
Summer breeze
From here he could almost see
The future
What the Colombian Exposition had wrought
Floating
Surreal
Without sound
The water in his ears
Serenity
Undermined by stone
He thought the “Great War”
Had been won
I wonder
If they called him Sonny-boy
Or Gene
The ones who would miss him
Or grieve
I wonder if they believed
That his future was
Brighter
As he swallowed the cool water
His stunned eyes/sinking
Below the surface
The streaming blood staining
Spoiling the Great Lake
Mimicking
The Red Summer sky
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