“un-strange fruit” lies at the bottom of the tree

written By

It will likely snow in a few days.
The spots will start to fade,

And become absent before the start of the June.

April showers will come and wash the rest away,

and pink blossoms from the park
will lift into the air,
landing where their last breaths were taken.

Until another blast rings out,
the street vibrates with footsteps and screams,
and the sidewalk is covered in red again.

For yet, another “Un-strange fruit” lies at the bottom of the tree,

Easy for hurried soles to squish and

And leave a stain that by all attempts

Refuses removal, thus,

seeps into the outdoor placemat,

the entryway carpet,

and the bedroom rug.

Now that it is clear

it is in their path,

that it cannot be dodged by ducking beneath a low branch

only time will tell if they honor this moment

by planting fresh trees

and ensuring the branches and roots

are kept alive with water.

Author

  • Naa Asheley Ashitey is a Chicago-born writer and MD–PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A first-generation, low-income Ghanaian-American and University of Chicago alumna, she writes at the intersection of race, medicine, and belonging.

    Her creative and editorial writing examines how policy, media, and academia reproduce structural violence—and what it means to resist with truth.

    Her creative work appears or is forthcoming in Eunoia Review, BULL, Hobart, The Cincinnati Review, and editorials for The Xylom, MedPage Today, and KevinMD. She has been nominated for multiple awards, including Best Small Fiction.

    Ashitey

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