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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Angry (08/02/07)

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• TITLE: Klan | Previous Challenge Entry
  By Leigh MacKelvey
  08/06/07
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Twist the night away, Junior High yearbook,
Football jersey that smells like Hank.
These things I know.

There are things I don’t know:
Obscenity that snakes around,
sneaks on tippy-toes.
Hank comes over,
we watch the black and white
on the tiny screen in the den
spin across America,
then pour
out of the square box,
smack dab
into our southern town.

Labeled water fountains,
back of bus rides,
classrooms of students
who wear only my skin.
I know nothing else.
Then Daddy buys the bowling alley.
Widens the doors
gives way to those
the previous owner denied.

He grips their hands,
sizes their shoes,
teaches them
to choose the right ball,
leads them to the end lanes.

Middle lanes are in front of windows
and bricks begin to fly.

Meetings take place after dark,
then,
when chill is still in the air,
Daddy takes me
to watch the embers devour
the rest of the cross
in front
of his Grand opening sign.


I breathe through my mouth,
pinch my nose
to refuse the stench of hate.

Come nights my sister
and I take
the smaller ones
to hide under the bed.
Fingernails scratch the floor,
we shiver in terror,
ears strain for the shatter
of glass,
of daddy’s silence
as the phone menaces,
shakes with opposition.

We wait
until
a flaming cross
scorches
the grass
on our front lawn.

Hank’s father is afraid for him,
so I give his football jersey back.
He gives it to someone safer
and now I know more.

Days of anger.
But Daddy stood alone,

for love.

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