The Resurrected Face of Emmet Till

By Thomas Elson

– On viewing Inauguration Day photographs.

The world’s compass stopped – Our national glass coffin exposed remains of vital youth once brimming with enthusiasm, brimming with curiosity, brimming into tomorrow

Now Beaten Now Swollen Now Morphed

Into something other

A repellant death mask resurrecting history’s face

Nativism from our antediluvian past

A face of Hatred Fear Coarseness Lives defaced beyond recognition

Encased within a coffin Showing how we died –

By a land and people clawed by revenge

Faces not the future but

of thoughts resurrected

thoughts resown

thoughts returned

thoughts beyond recognition

Image credit: Nick Number CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikipedia article about Emmet Till. Image cropped.