Maligned word formed root
signed heavy in lead centered
here
Passing through groan weight
off trafficked feet heaved
down
Burdened arch decked figurines
brown gods from Greece & Rome
gild
mortared pillars disregard
homage expressed up stairs &
fists
Rocky is a myth in the air between
us untrue things this American
dream
Wepner stole the image of
the butterfly man, and Black
men
in the right gear join the white
to take 72 ignorant of bees and
sting
6 movies and Creed for he that lost
to the king and one for he that
won
This is the story of a city of love
in a country that rewrites
us
Ru Freeman is a Sri Lankan and American writer, poet, and activist whose work appears internationally in English and in translation. She is the author of the short-story collection, Sleeping Alone (2022), and the forthcoming essay collection, Bon Courage (2023) and the novels A Disobedient Girl (2009) and On Sal Mal Lane (2013), a New York Times Editor's Choice Book. She is the editor of the anthology, Extraordinary Rendition: American Writers on Palestine (2015) and co-editor of Indivisible: Global Leaders on Shared Security (2018). She writes for the UK Guardian, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe. She is a winner of the Mariella Gable Award for Fiction, and the JH Kafka Prize for Fiction by an American Woman. She teaches creative writing in the US and abroad, and is the Director of the Artists Network at Narrative 4.
Photo by Ru Freeman