Planning for the End of the World
Let’s darken the windows
with a No. 2 pencil, pretend
danger isn’t a white boy with rage.
Let’s push the desks against the door
then analyze whether
love or death drove Ophelia mad.
Let’s remain vigilant but human
enough to let ourselves
feel haunted—feel hunted
by our conscience
as we ask children to
support arguments with evidence
look for facts from credible sources
but never shed a tear or drop
of blue or black ink.
Slip a gun
in my hand
instead of chalk?
Since you asked—
Yes, I will die
for your children
when the time comes.
Decades from now,
what story will the history books tell
about how our children ducked
into closets, huddled in corners?
hush
hold still
don’t talk
away from the windows
lights out
ashes ashes
we all fall down.
Forthcoming in the chapbook Field Guide to Forgiveness (Finishing Line Press September 2023)
©2019 Tina Rimbaldo
photograph
This is not a poem,
it is history repeating. It is the stitching of a rotten flag, the refrain of an anthem about 1) blood or 2) shame or 3) lies (You choose). If this were a poem, it wouldn’t be about a 16-year-old boy with a kind face. This line wouldn’t explain how a man shot this boy. I wouldn’t make sure you knew the boy is black the shooter white. I’m not this boy’s teacher, I’m not his mother, his aunt, so I am not qualified to tell the story of how he was picking up his siblings. He rang the wrong bell, thought it was the right house, But if I were to dedicate a stanza to him, I’d write: he plays the clarinet, is an honors student, excels at chemistry, plans to go to college, is loved. He is loved.
©2023 Tina Rimbaldo
photograph
A Citizen
The next time you stop speaking, ask yourself why you were born. —Naomi Shihab Nye “Separation Wall”
When you peel an orange it is still whole, only more vulnerable . The next time you can’t cry ask yourself how you survived or why you still persist when loss sings an anthem pointing a gun. Pretend opioids are scared of skin AR-15s frightened of lunch boxes pretend tear gas is afraid of violins. When I bite into a ripe strawberry my mouth full of seeds and juice, I want to feel like a citizen of a country that protects us all, where a Black man kneeling is the same as a white man kneeling, where a white man kneeling won’t mean a Black man can’t breathe. I want to be able to tell the children I teach, no matter who you are in this land, you will survive.
Forthcoming in the chapbook Field Guide to Forgiveness (Finishing Line Press September 2023)
©2023 Tina Rimbaldo
photograph
©2023 Rebecca Watkins
All rights reserved
Rebecca Watkins…
…is a writer and educator based in the Hudson Valley of New York. She is the author of the forthcoming poetry chapbook Field Guide to Forgiveness (Finishing Line Press September 2023) and the full-length poetry book Sometimes, in These Places (Unsolicited Press 2017). Her creative nonfiction has been shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Open Season Awards. She writes poetry, creative nonfiction, and memoir.
The BeZine 