Sunshowers by Christell Victoria Roach

he raises palms

while shooing winged things

while the neighbor beats his wife

while the roaches gather ‘neath the tarp on da roof

while a woman hollers he gon kill me!

while tucking fruit skins into the soil of the tree

while a child dances in the street, eyes fixed on sky

while the girls tug on their slips in the choir rafters

while the sons culture wine from open palms

while the banana spiders dodge the vinegar                                 

while Stacey hangs on the air like a whisper

while the sun shines by the bay, and it rains off I-95, over 9th St.

while riffraff gathers at the head of the road, hood in hand

while somewhere, a child is missing, gator bait

while a mother prays with a circle of women

while palmetto bugs gather at his feet

while chicken souse simmers in the pot

while The Duke come on the radio talking he Don’t Get Around Much Anymore

while Willie sinks another boat full of rum, mangoes, bodies

he peels an orange, rips the hanging branch,

opens the skin like a wound

wedge by wedge the dirt beneath his nails is replaced by pulp

he undresses the child, cussing summer and praying to the light

raising each tree.

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Christell Victoria Roach is a writer born and raised in Miami, Florida. She is currently double majoring in Creative Writing & African American Studies at Emory University. She writes to advocate for awareness, for social justice efforts, and to create representation for the voices of her people. Christell was a 2015 National YoungArts Foundation Winner in Poetry, and has traveled the country performing spoken word with Tigertail WordSpeak and YouthSpeaks’ Brave New Voices. She has received awards in Carnegie Hall, and recently performed poetry in the Kennedy Center. A current finalist in poetry & playwriting for the Agnes Scott Writer's Festival, she carries a quote within her: “Passion overrides talent.” It pushes her to own the presence in the art she carries.