Poet of the Week: Samantha Thornhill
Bring Back
Bring back the brown faces
missing from milk cartons.
Bring back our lost, our girls from Accra,
Laventille, Gugulethu & the Bronx;
dredge them up from swamps
on the hills of capitals. Bring back
search parties, flashlights small suns.
Amber alert the diaspora to the town hall.
Bring back our sons from their chalk
outlines, caskets swallowing our boys
like Jonahs. Bring our men back
from lynch ropes, lead pipes & Ivy League
cages. Bring back our mothers
from the caves in their hearts.
Bring back the souls of child
traffickers & top dollar rapists—
CEO’s, celebrities & holy men
who leave their masks chattering
on nightstands in rooms wallpapered
with girls no milk box could ever save.
Bring our babies back to their own beds
left made & unmade.
Bring them back with the whole village—
each face a bead braided into its memory—
Bring back: oh, Quita missing?
Girl, she been at Darius’
house since school let out.
I thought you knew. Chile.