By Michele Evans
973.0496 * | a double golden shovel
with maya angelou "still, i rise" and rihanna's "lift me up"
you asterisked their voices, tried to bury them in parchment tomes too heavy to lift.
may these black boxes, redacted gifts from ancestors, stay hidden from people like me.
write they say what upsets you, threats you, forgets you, paper moon scribbles, to raise up
me and all the others with bowed heads, clasped hands, trying to resist earth's chokehold.
down bad beasts cataloging and circulating a litany of isms, types, and phobias onto me
in hate so my eyes remain censored, plagued for centuries by maladies binding me down.
history, still rooted and written in hypocrisies, veiled in plain sight tragedies, to keep
with tradition, rule of thumb trigger warnings where you ban, block, and burn me.
your voice weeding my colorful chapters from carrels and bookshelves, truths too close,
bitter reminders to read what defines me, enshrines me, until my contents are safe
twisted tales no longer archived, earmarked pages, cracked spines replacing hard truths and
lies, yet still i rise, with pen in hand, ready to restore our libraries with a liberating sound.
* 973.0496 is a call number used for books about African American history and culture.
Michele Evans, a fifth-generation Washingtonian (D.C.), is a writer, high school English teacher, and adviser for her school's literary magazine, Unbound. Despite always wearing the color black, she exhibits a certain fondness for blueberries, blue hydrangeas, blues musicians, and Blue Mountain coffee. This 2023 Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of the ASP Bulletin poetry contest has been published in Artemis Journal, Maryland Literary Review, The Write Launch, and elsewhere. purl, her debut collection of poetry, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2025. You can find her at awordsmithie.com or @awordsmithie on Instagram.
