Poetry of Witness

when I tell them I saw

a parade of dead children

led by the antler man in his baggy suit

he put a little flag

in each cold gray hand

said smile for the cameras

no jury can convict a nameless arm

whose fingers are faces

that twitch from hell’s sleeve

let me run to the hills

older than hell

let me eat locusts

let kudzu claim me like a tin trailer

let the hills swallow me

milk me into honey

and feed me to the black bears

so my tongue is one with the river

and even I can’t understand me anymore

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Emma Galloway Stephens is a neurodivergent poet and professor from the Appalachian foothills of South Carolina. Her poems have appeared in The Windhover, Thimble Literary Magazine, Red Branch Review, Ekstasis Magazine, Door is a Jar Literary Magazine, and many other publications. You can read more at egstephenspoetry.com.