adumbrate
8 24 2019
on a lightless night elijah
mcclain 23-year-old black
masseur and violinist
who plays for sheltered animals
listens to music hums walks home
from a store after buying tea
anemic he wears an open-
faced ski mask for warmth 911
brown caller thinks he looks weird
suspicious 140
pounds 5-foot-6 night in white
aurora colorado black
innocence guitarist walking
sketchy unarmed not accused
of any crime denver blue line
where domestic terror foments
three achromatic officers
tackle elijah to ground
chokehold him down in that special
suite of white hell reserved for black
men my name’s elijah mcclain
i can’t breathe please stop—they do not
three depigmented law men
two of whom are former u s a
marines randy roedema and
nathan woodyard plus one jason
rosenblatt cuff black elijah’s
hands behind his back i was just
going home i’m an introvert
i’m just different i have no gun
i don’t do that stuff i don’t do
any fighting i don’t kill flies
i don’t eat meat forgive me he
vomits gasps for air i‘m sorry
i wasn’t trying to do that
i can’t breathe correctly
this night sans light hushed white hot fascist
winds whirl alt right blood rushes swirls
blanched paramedic jeremy
cooper takes lieutenant peter
cichuniec’s order injects
slender elijah mcclain with
500 mg ketamine
post heavy sedative dose
on his vomit elijah chokes
heart attacks declared brain dead
pray tell how the hell did all three
body cams fall off during
the arrest our best supremacists
three more on duty officers
erica marrero jaron
jones and kyle dittrich arrive
at the scene where elijah was stopped
they pose for selfies smile laugh joke
they reenact the same chokehold
used on elijah by righteous
sworn officers of law jason
rosenblatt even sends ha-ha texts
mocks black elijah’s death
blue passionfruit
in mirrors mama looks back at
me i’m older than she was when
she died in february my
head shaved for months years i wear black
my soul in freefall through foothills
tall sahara roses fry in
triple digit may june heat i
wrestle pen to paper to purge
for black elijah mcclain whom
three white colorado cops and
two white paramedics slayed
cold ketamine injected
under a headlight moon indicted
for the death they mocked
my stomach churns a sea tide turns
far right far white storms forewarning
civil war looms smoking gun grey
sky red mars black sun rising white
supremacy seeks to suppress
the vote semi-welcoming war-
driven afghans as white border
boys beat back expel black haitians
catastrophe-driven they’ve walked
apocalyptic miles dreamed post-
apocalyptic nightmares a
white idaho woman confessed
no masks were worn at her baby
shower she caught covid gave
birth on a ventilator they cut
the baby out amid vaccine
hesitancy hoarding unhoused
neighbors can’t quarantine friends need
healthcare chemo nurses drag ass
to therapists we’re unhinged i
leave food money notes blue kisses
ruby orchids at their doors black
rickia young today received
two million dollars after she
was pulled from her car and beaten
by lawless white lawmen sans love
in philadelphia though our
cars are dented swiped swastikaed
keyed we don’t call boise p d
our olivia lone bear found
drowned among thousands of amber
black girls gone missing i deep-seed
lily lotus amaryllis
visions of equal justice rise
i see mama’s eyes unflinching
our voices ring i’m older than
she was in my late september
garden mama looks back at me
Risë Kevalshar Collins is a writer living in Boise. She studies creative writing at Boise State University where she has served on the editorial staff of Idaho Review. Risë earned an MSW at University of Houston. She holds a BFA in Drama from Carnegie-Mellon University. Her poetry appears in ANMLY, The Indianapolis Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and Minnesota Review. Her creative nonfiction appears in Michigan Quarterly Review and is forthcoming in Texas Review. Rise’s fiction appears in The North American Review. You may read and/or listen to Risë read her poetry online in Tupelo Quarterly (“Decrescent Moon” and “Threnody”) and The Indianapolis Review (“Passion Flowers” and “Pauli”).
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