by Sean Hill
For us the struggle is the myth that’s spelled R-A-C-E.
In our mother tongues it binds our pride, can sound like almost
any slur you please or any stereotype you like,
for where and to whom one’s born guides our sense of this or that
good or bad in the folks we were born into this world with.
For us the struggle is the myth; it’s spelled R-A-C-E
and seems to be the favorite meat of my home—Georgia,
these United States, come to think of it, and, I dare say,
folks of nations around this world. This man-made device—
improvised thing—explodes—a bomb held in the palm of one
trying to defuse the one-drop rule or blood quantum. I
fear the fight for us will always be spelled R-A-C-E.
Poem copyright 2026 by Sean Hill. All rights reserved.
See more poems from Sean Hill on The Fight & The Fiddle: “The State House Aflame, 1833,” “They Shower Us with Kisses or Bullets Depending,” and “How a Father Should Take with His Son.”
Read more in this issue: Interview | Critical Essay | Writing Prompt
![in this sea
of questions
that
quested
to understand
me. [struck out]
I am
buried
in an alphabet
of answers,
half-
cocked and still
drunk
from the nights
before.
An ocean of A's
work overtime
trying
to tow
me
from
the wreckage
of
an overactive imagination [struck out] myself.
One should say
the names](https://i0.wp.com/fightandfiddle.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Mourners-Corner-Pic_Page_2-edited.jpg?resize=800%2C1037&ssl=1)
![of the angels who try
to save
them -
so I say, April [italicized]
Angela [italicized]
Andres [italicized], a season
of tulips erupt
like tiny
insurrectionists
in the grave
of gray
matter, the smoky
haze
aftermath
of
wildfires
decades
away -
let me make
it plain:
every
day
I dream
of cracking
this
body
open
like a melon
against
pave-
ment](https://i0.wp.com/fightandfiddle.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Mourners-Corner-Pic_Page_3-edited-2.jpg?resize=800%2C1038&ssl=1)
![There.
wiping
his forehead
with a wet
rag,
impotent
Against Death,
heeding
his warning
to throw [italicized]
water [italicized]
on Blackbeard [italicized]
and get out [italicized]
of the way, [italicized]
not knowing
there was nowhere
I could run
to escape
the end of this
story.
Once,
in an audience,
on the heels
of my 53rd
year, a woman
from my hometown
asked:](https://i0.wp.com/fightandfiddle.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Mourners-Corner-Pic_Page_5-edited-1.jpg?resize=800%2C1035&ssl=1)
![what does it feel like [italicized]
to be an elder? [italicized]
I spun
into a tower
of babel
but should have said:
you [italicized]
tell me. [italicized]
You are still [italicized]
trying to crawl [italicized]
from the carcass [italicized]
of our dead [italicized]
city, [italicized]
back [italicized]
again [italicized]
in the [italicized]
bedroom [italicized]
of your eighth year. [italicized]
I am still
a daughter
kissing the
forehead
of a man no longer here, try-
ing
not to weep
into
his smooth brow.
What the fuck
do I know](https://i0.wp.com/fightandfiddle.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Mourners-Corner-Pic_Page_6-edited.jpg?resize=800%2C1038&ssl=1)
