Beverly Jackson

Thinking people want
to understand
so they talk.
They say
nothing happens in a vacuum.
They say
the sins of the fathers
waft like ghosts through the smoke
of fallen towers.

So no. Don’t speak.
Don’t tell me more.
I’m glutted with blame games--
the mea culpa.
They say
the snake striped
in red white and blue
slithers
across history’s deserts.

But:
          My father sat in the tail of a B-17
          and his hands went cold
          as he fell from the sky.
          wrapped in a flag,
          buried in France,
          a national hero,
          you see.

          Purple hearts
          swaying on ribbons
          do not beat.

Serpents coil in blood
And rise to strike again.

I’m an old lady,
a father’s child,
with hands
already chilled
and empty.

In Posse: Potentially, might be ...