Carter McKenzie
Calling for His Mother
—in memory of George Floyd
Calling for his mother
is a natural instinct
is the first instinct
when in danger
I have heard of this call
when bears
were eating a person alive
the bears unknowing
awful in their hunger
no word for it
indifferent, the story
bringing me
to my knees, fear in the
vastness of other beings
a humbling
my life unknown to them
how we are alone
a natural truth
I will be subject to but
what I cannot live with
what I say
I will not live with but I do
is the empty gaze of a white man
killing a Black man
beneath the weight
of the white man’s knee
for nearly 10 minutes, other
officers watching
doing nothing
and as a white mother
I either live with that
or not, the absence
of good, a good man’s soul
departing in our midst
on video, regular onlookers
pleading to lift
the unjust weight
crushing
deliberate
mindless
claim to law
and as a mother
I choose the bear
I wish upon the empty gaze
of the white man’s system
the full
transformative
attention
of the bear
No más
“A number of women allege they were administered birth control and underwent procedures, including removal of their productive organs, without their consent while being held at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia.” (LA Times, October 22, 2020)
no más
the first to blow the whistle
a Black woman, a single mother
a nurse at the detention facility
Dawn Wooten
no más
reporting general lack of medical care, shredded
medical request forms filled with blue
handwritten messages
of immigrants
detained there
reporting sickness
no más
repeated delays
one detained woman,
“oozing out of her belly button”
after a laparoscopy, twelve sick call requests
in the span of two weeks
no más
yet a stream of women
having the same operation
over and over
being transported
to the doctor’s office
in the outside world
no más
Dawn Wooten saw this
Dawn Wooten spoke up
while others shut up
fabricated, smirked, shredded
document after document
for what reasons
from what fear
no más
about the doctor the immigrant women
called “the uterus collector”
no más
high rates of hysterectomies
done to
immigrant women
Black and Brown women
Latina, African, Caribbean, Chinese, some
in this country since they were babies,
many without English
no más
patients’ confusion about what had been done
a woman waking up chained
to a hospital bed
no más
Ibuprofen for everything else
but often no response
to breast cancer
to HIV
to COVID-19
for example
no más
no more kids
no más
such priorities
a detained woman’s drawing of a
uterus containing a question mark
no más
about the doctor—
about the for-profit prison
running this place—
about the doctor’s lawyer—
“we are confident the facts will
demonstrate the very malicious intent of
others to advance a purely political
agenda”
Dr. Amin “strongly denies”
Dr. Amin is “fully cooperating”
Dr. Amine is “dedicated”
Dr. Amin is a “highly respected physician”
no más
the doctor’s words to patients waking up:
the doctor explaining his reasoning:
her fallopian tubes were “no good”
he “didn’t see why” she needed a uterus
because “how many kids you got?”
no más
such a doctor
such priorities
what did they do to me?
no más
delayed inspection reports from
the “detention oversight arm
of ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility”
no más
without consent
over and over
a place “not equipped for humans”
a place with “one shower for more than fifty people”
a place of rancid food crawling
with ants and cockroaches
a place where only God is taking care of us
given the nature of ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility
how it operates
no más
ICE is not listening
ICE is not remembering
Nurse Wooten’s testimony: “He’s even taken out the wrong ovary
of a young lady…she said she was not all the way
under anesthesia and heard him tell the nurse
he took the wrong one”
no más
maltrato
doing what they like to us
what type of surgery did I have?
no más negligencias
no más discriminacion
no más lagrimas
wrote Angela Rojas ID number 72125
wrote Ana Adan ID number 42179
wrote Keynin Roy ID number 7245
wrote Enna Perez Sunlos ID number 70885
in blue ink on the Medical Request and Treatment Form
no más
rotten stink
of medical exam rooms
at Irwin County Detention Center
waste containers
overfilled
where “dust was observed on horizontal surfaces”
no más
“jarring medical neglect”
no más
punishment of solitary confinement
punishment of deportation
for those detained
objecting to this horror
and this is not the only place
no más
genocide is happening in the United States of America
land of liberty
no más
no más
no más!
Prayer for Heaven
May it hold the sounds
of the raw seams of our world,
our difficult heart, the borders
always at war.
May it hold mercy.
May it never be
above and beyond
blossoms
scattering.
May it gather the blossoms beyond
the dark wall, on every side
revealing
an opening.
May it discover new names.
May heaven be generous, may
its own burning
sky,
its seraphim of infinite
moons and suns,
include every loss, even
the loneliness of the bones of a dog
floating
among the miracles of space
before the anonymous fall, the abandoned vessel’s
fiery descent, everything
gone wrong, may it include even
the loneliness of the dog.
May it hold in its eye
the deep blue
dream we keep trying to tell—
how the light falls apart,
then is saved
no matter what happens,
again and again, may heaven
be the singing, and may we be
forever changed.
Poem previously printed in Canary, Hip Pocket Press.
The Doll
—from the memory of a black-and-white photograph, circa 1909, Lynchburg, Virginia
I never noticed anything
but the soft faces, the mother
and her two young daughters
held close, the youngest sister
tucked on her mother’s lap, the eldest
my grandmother, nestled
next to her mother’s side, obedient
and composed, her wide satin bow
carefully tied. I never noticed anything
but the clean white dresses
the cotton folds, the mother central
each daughter leaning inward
toward her, against her frame
within a gold-painted
oval frame, a composition of repose
but the youngest
perhaps three years of age, her eyes
half closed as if in a drowse
the corners of her mouth
downturned, sleepy or sulking
against the soft patterns
of lace, her mother’s softness
and my grandmother, age five perhaps
how her later stories of the nurse
who sang them to sleep every night
throughout her childhood
stayed with me, yet I never noticed
in this maternal portrait placed in my own
childhood room, what the baby held
loosely, like a forgotten bit of cloth
meant to comfort, held out of habit, perhaps
something she was tired of, almost dropped
from the small white hand, the black arm
of a rag doll, the carelessness of the hold
amidst such care, the doll
limp across the baby’s legs
against the whiteness
and now all I see—why the doll: not seen
being the point, being the directive
in this careful triad, not seen
determining the subject,
the object, learned
before I knew it, this is
who we are
and now we are
within me
what I keep seeing
what I unearth