A Sonnet For Stanley Tookie Williams

All month this country has careened toward cold and winter's celebrations: what a star announced—a birth—and then a chance to fold a year away, pull one fresh from the drawer, if not clean, well, unworn. in just a few months arrives the ice-hot day of the dead- come-back-to-life—time then to ask how new and re- beginnings differ. mary bled for the december miracle, as some- one must. did you imagine sacrifice as you called the crips to life? did they come, those youngbloods, at the crackling of your voice, like lazarus to christ? vigilant night. on the road to san quentin, candlelight.