"Babe Broke Bobo Again" by Donna Weaver
“the crown of his head was just crushed out... and a piece of his skull just fell out."
—Autopsy report of Emmett Till
65 years after he was shot in the head your flip flop went through glass
that I believed was enough to protect Emmett Till’s face
in a photo with his mama. Babe, your foot stomped Emmett hard
on Sunday afternoon as we argued about the volume of your Wu-tang
while I was trying to nap. I may re-frame the photo, babe,
with shattered glass pieces spread across Emmett’s smile. You don’t know what it means
to juxtapose, do you, babe? I want this man who I sleep beside to remember
what he did to Emmett’s face with a size 13 foot.
Babe, Mamie didn’t see your foot as she smiled behind the glass
and she couldn’t see the white fists that pounded Emmett in a shed
in Money, Mississippi. Emmett’s body was intact when exhumed in 2005
I remind you of this as I sweep up the pieces of the glass.
Donna Weaver’s work has appeared in or is forthcoming from the Tahoma Literary Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Griffel, The Bangalore Review, Aji Magazine, Solstice Literary Magazine, Drunkenboat, Colere, Pavement Saw, Pebble Lake Review, and others. She was accepted to the Cave Canem African American Poet’s Summer Writing Retreat. She is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh where she received a Bachelor’s Degree in English Writing. She is the founding editor of Caketrain Journal & Press.
