This Camel's Back

This Camel's Back



On the murder of Sean Bell

I.
Unconcerned with the needle
in the haystack, and the pot
at the ass end of rainbows.

No crusade for the magic
stick, or godmother's wand.

Today we ponder the proverbial
straw.

We have been journeying
this desert for days.

Sandstorms to skin
cousin water
singing from livid hoses;

in the distance, cacti
echo arrested men.

By day we are candles
burning at both ends;
at night we shiver like astronauts
in our measley tents.

This Everest on legs, this
beast that schleps us all
requires more water than we
have to give it, but somehow
we make do.

Somehow it does too;
hefts us across
time's unforgiving sands.


II.
If more boulevards named after dead men;
if nooses resurrecting
from the shallow graves of history;
if black gold proving yet again
its invisibility
to the scales of justice;
if the reality of being life's lover
but never the world's friend;
if sunken city or evolution
toward bulletproof skin
isn't straw enough--then

it fears me to think
of what it will take
to break
this camels' back
at last.



© Samantha Thornhill

Published in Proud Flesh.