Issue Twenty-Six - Summer 2015

(From the Autobiography of Malcolm X)

By Lindsay MacDonald

An erasure poem, constructed from the pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

In their eyesight we were just things:
a Welfare check,
 tomatoes,
 white rabbits in a trap,
a big pot of dandelion greens,
some small-minded children would tease us,
we ate "fried grass".
If we were lucky we would have cornbread at night.
    we were always in the sack, 
deterioration of pride: more bread than meat.

They acted as if they owned us, but we
  would lie quiet until bullfrogs appeared.

Copyright MacDonald 2015

Lindsay MacDonald is a poet based in Lowell, Massachusetts. She received her B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. She has been writing poetry for the past 12 years. Many of her poems focus on the absurdity of everyday life, bad luck, feminist afterthoughts, and the characters in her life she calls her friends. Featured is an erasure poem, constructed from the pages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

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