i was raised
on the notion that
god gave us rainbows
as a promise
never to let us
perish en masse
again
when the sky
broke, when
floodwaters
lifted the ark
over the shoulders
of the unnamed,
did they also
utter
‘i can’t breathe’
somewhere i
learned to say
in the storm,
don’t worry,
rainbows are coming,
but nobody mentioned
some of us
have been
weathering storms
all the while.
michael king 