Troy Davis was executed by the American state of Georgia on September 21, 2011. A black man, he was convicted of the murder of white police officer Mark MacPhail, though evidence remained inconclusive, and the murder weapon was never found.
there are flowers on the altar of my rib cage
for you, Troy;
not dead ones, not
the wilting ghosts of memory on the lid of a casket,
but live,
weedlike, opening
like hands.
not because i knew you personally, Troy,
but because i didn’t. because when they killed you,
people who didn’t know you, like me,
had to open our
eyes
ears
hands
mouths
when they killed you, we
cried
coughed
shuddered
gasped
and little sparks flew out of our bodies:
the memory of mothers, whispering in infant ears,
whispering in accents, bad grammar, forgotten languages,
whispering through the bloody aftermath of
labour
violence
scraped knees
broken glass
knuckles,
“you can be anything you want to be, little one,
my baby,
in this country, anything you
want,”
MLK in grainy footage, proclaiming,
“Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring,”
a dream that i was climbing up the stairs
to the musical sound of
coins
falling from my pockets and covering
everything
and at the top there was a window
and there were bars on it
and down below there were a
thousand tiny
candle flames
little sparks that
flew out of this world when they killed you,
and we won’t get them
back; they
are yours now, small lights burning
in the place wherever you are.
you became the difference
between promises and prayers,
Troy.
now we know it.
i never knew you,
Troy,
but still, there are flowers on the altar
of my rib cage for you;
not dead ones,
but live,
growing in salt water.