This Too Is a Meme
Poetry
Nomonde Calata screaming long after
apartheid burns her husband to ashes — long after
her screams rent the tenuous fabric of
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and her screams
carry across South Africa’s oceans
to an America rent by lies — red-mudded America soaking in
veiled intentions —
can we ever meme our way to the truth — with a scream that startles our
climb
out of the mud? toward
national reconciliation acknowledgment / acceptance
redress / healing / hope
face the truth about the past, address the harm,
give testimony, receive the informant’s pain
this too is a meme —
vengeance is the lord’s but only revenge will cleans our soul,
only by screaming until the shockwaves burst the dam of inattention,
and we press play/replay/rewind/fast-forward
this too is a meme,
an American meme.
