American Mural

Seeping red on a white t-shirt under blue sky.

When a man dies like that
He becomes a mural
On a mini mart wall in Ferguson
Or a shotgun shack in Baton Rouge

Martyred by & for a color
Brown takes on all kinds of hues
All kinds of textures
When it’s painted on
Whitewashed concrete

He becomes everything
He was and everything
He wasn’t up there on display

His daily sweat and daily bread
Erased in a final image
We stare & imagine
Filling in what’s missing
With what we know from
Yesterday’s news
With what we know from
300 years of history

We guess at the rest
Or make it up
See or don’t see ourselves
In the mural-mirror
That wasn’t there yesterday

Our American mural
So much skin on the wall

Pigment & paint charcoal & wash
Mortar brick block & plaster
Ebony alabaster
Chalk ochre
Shadow shade
Perspective
Fade

Plain labor built those walls
Maybe in the 50s
Or the 1970s
Used or misused over the years
Abandoned reclaimed
Reinvented lost and found again
Public space and public witness

On the American body
These murals spread like tattoos
On our shared skin

And we read as our story unfolds
Across the street

On our smartphones
On our computers
On our screens newspaper TVs
We see the pictures
We hear the voices
We read the words
We see it all again

When every inch is filled
When every wall is covered
All becomes black

What does the perfect mural
Look like? Red white & blue
Is not enough

Old glory
Old sorrow
What colors does new sorrow bring?