SUBTRACTED
by Dee Allen
Sisters aren’t valued
In this world of ours
Seen nowhere on the streets
Not the hospitals, malls or bars
Because they’re
Missing
Subtracted
From the city
Headcount cut down in size.
Sisters aren’t respected
In this world of ours
Yet their kin are fraught w/ worry.
Long absence digs in the scars
Because they’re
Missing
Subtracted
From the city
Headcount falls before our eyes.
Sisters, mothers,
Aunties, lovers
Our hearts—snatched up suddenly.
Sisters, mothers,
Aunties, lovers
Police won’t help—where could they be?
W: 1.2.23
[ In response to Black women missing and murdered in Kansas City. ]
**************
DEEP NORTH
Headed to the “promised land” in droves
Attracted to bright urban lights
Like a swarm of sepia-toned moths
They arrive
In search of work
Safer homes
Altars to pray to
In search of the peace that
Living in the so-called
“Bible Belt” did not give them.
What kind of god
Would allow its own children to
Endure the jail cell
The slurs
Out of the mouths of babes & rednekkks
The noose that broke the neck
From a tree
Strung-up
For the crime of
Being born Black
The white hoods that made their Heaven
By making innocent lives Hell?
What kind of god
Would abandon its own children
To the mercy of hate?
To doors being shut to them
Because they are descendants of the enslaved?
They arrive
With a different kind of home in their hearts.
Among the dark mass, a young
Tsalagi* woman, her Black carpenter
Husband & their 2 daughters [ one a half-breed ]
Leave Virginia in the dust
Headed for the “promised land”
In the shadow of the Great Depression.
The Deep North welcomes them all.
W: 3.20.07
*Tsalagi [ pronounced “Chah-lah-gee” ]: What the Cherokee Indians call themselves.
