Like Water

By: Maria Prudente

Tonight, we split the fear of our lives toward the exhausted sky

desperately as a bull, forcing his horns into flesh.

The people cry. We charge the streets free of delirium

screaming to fill the centuries of deafening silence.

Soaked in Thursday’s sweat, we demand the memory

of Breonna through Friday’s afternoon rainfall.

Move like water, they tell us. What is the remedy?

It’s us-- the force that drives the water and Tamika, our Poseidon.

Saturday, we burn lines in our weary throats as we leap octaves

tipping over park benches to cry out for change.

Sunday, we grieve in numbers beneath the prying choppers

hunting us, we zig zag through streets--we move like water.

Banging pots and ringing bells bless the motion of our currents

shifting, diverging across the corner where Martin and Malcolm intersect.

We kneel in lotus tranquility raising our fists into the air

pounding our feet into the pavement along Central Park West

before the levees break, and we are clamped by blue on three sides.

Our hearts have not stopped and we remember, move like water

Go flood the first line of the barricade with tusk-ivory bodies

to shield our sisters and brothers, our chant leader crying on crutches.

We throw our rage against the fury of summer’s heat

scorched by our seething chants, our blistering hope for the history of race to see its end.

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Maria Prudente is a writer and actress based in New York City. She has written about feminist ethics for The Manifest-Station, and her poetry & nonfiction has appeared in Cathexis Northwest Press and Prometheus Dreaming. She currently studies Creative Writing at Columbia University.