FORGOTTEN HANDS

FORGOTTEN HANDS

Ricardo Antonio Garcia

I see,

rusted chains against black skin

scarring a nation of people

embellishing

the slave masters fortune

from the sweat equities

of all the forgotten hands amidst.

Wailing grief

pound for pound

is never sold like flesh

on the market

for suffrages are all too human.

Memory of these hands

hangs from trees

slaughtered by white men

shamelessly

aggregate the burdens

as the cart picks up their bodies.

I see,

the wheeled cart more than once

as the selected crimes

administer the penalty of evil

through the eyes

of wicked and hateful men.

What marks have we

that these enslavements

sparkle in the sky

of every black man with hands?

Shackling sounds

and hoofing boots echo

as my Mother weeps

and as Father is hauled away

shoved man by man

into the Well of the beast.

Forged into our skin

we will never admonish

the episodic cruelty

and the indignities suffered.

I see,

that freedom is a lie.

and that the pursuit of oppression still flies

in the newborn of the Klu Klux Klan.