Equal Rights
- Equal Rights
i
The streets in the townwe could nowwalk down, we still didn’t.
The stores we couldnow enterfroze when we did.
No one spoke a lot.People held their breathslike divers.
ii
Down by the church,an owl’s wing brushedagainst the car in darkness.
Slave ghosts linedthe rows of the cemetery,frowning at your whiteness.
Heat rose from your skinlike fog over the swamp.It dripped and sang
like bitter willows.So much nowhere. So muchnothing we became it. [End Page 43]
Anand Prahlad has recently published a second book of poems, As Good As Mango, and several excerpts from a memoir in progress, The Secret Life of a Black Aspie. He has also published several folklore studies, including, Reggae Wisdom: Proverbs in Reggae Music. Prahlad is a professor at the University of Missouri.
