The Day You Couldn't Spell Detroit by Any Name But Riot

On July 24, 1967,
a man was hanged on Hastings Street—
his eyes rolled toward the moon,
feet pointing toward the Berlin Wall separating
8 mile from the world.
Grandpa woke up with the sun
and ate his grape-fruit breakfast
while my father, then a boy of 9,
slumbered in the top bunk of his bed,
a tuft of orange hair poking through blue sheets,
the only sign of his existence.
It was 5:03 AM.
 
The swift crack of a police baton
broke the silence of 12th street
as the sun fought to rise above the projects.
In the street a man lay dying,
arms and legs broken, rearranged into the geometric pattern
of a kaleidoscope.
It was 8:05 AM.
 
The school bell rang as usual
yet teachers sat alone in classrooms—
the ghost of chalk dust settling into braided hair.
The high school dropouts who were best friends
slumped against the worn bricks of the pawn shop,
using them as sun-warmed camouflage against
the shower of bullets raining down on them,
angrily piercing dusty skin.
It was 3:25 PM.
 
Grandma’s auburn hair blazed in the afternoon sun
as she prepared a chicken dinner
with water-stained pots.
At the A&P supermarket a brightly packaged parcel
of meat was mistaken as a gun;
the father of three never made it home for dinner.
It was 4:01 PM.
 
Grandpa arrived home adorned with a thin film of despair,
a jacket draped over sunburned shoulders.
Over the years, a twisted wedding ring had worn
a thin circle of worry into heavily veined hands.
Grandma perched on the pink-patterned love seat,
smooth skin crinkled into lines of disquiet
as the only home she knew evaporated ,
like the water in the firebombed birdbath,
into the setting sun.
It was 8:00PM.
 
Swinging on a creaky porch swing
sipping a glass of sticky apple juice
my father gazed at the man in the moon.
And the shooting stars across the sky
weren’t really stars at all; but the souls of the
forty three victims racing each other to eternity.
It was 12:30 AM.