MARTIN LUTHER KING: A POEM

Remembering Martin Luther King 40 years later.


OLD KING


What if King wore mirrors,
and they refracted the bullet,
and he did not fall
into Jackson or Young’s arms?

What if he drove out
of Memphis in a car
cleaned of Hoover’s bugs
to meet Coretta

and father another child?
What if he grew old
watching Americans
wild-eyed, dancing,

reconciled, beside
cherry blossoms
blooming, one spring
day on the Mall?



-- Indran Amirthanayagam, April 4, c) 2008