Photo by Victor Larracuente on Unsplash
before hope packed it’s suitcase & fled for the hills taking her words along with
it before hospice Grandma could weave a story from dust a meal from
prayer she was all powerful she proved it when she turned
her diagnosis into a rabbit
between operations while her legs could still carry her she paced bubblegum colored
floors decorating the wards with anthemic song through a toothless smile
we gonna kill da rabbit we gonna kill da rabbit
da rabbit is da cansuh so we gonna kill ’em dead
never looking weak even as her breath became a draft in a cathedral
a few months saw the thinning of grandma her salt & pepper curls
yet she sang her pacing, crackled fanfare calming the near-dead nearby
eventually her bed became her home still she painted the walls of her room with song
until a forever-hush yanked the brush from her throat when the rabbit
outran the hunter in her blood
Raphael Jenkins prefers to go by Ralph, as he feels it suits him better and he’s heard every Ninja Turtle joke ever uttered. He, like Issa Rae, is rooting for everybody Black. He is a three time 2021 Best of the Net nominee whose work has been featured on his mama’s fridge, his close friends’ inboxes, 3 Elements Review, as a 2021 Frontier Poetry Open finalist, Flypaper Lit, Rust + Moth, Alien Literary Magazine and elsewhere.