Triage
2023; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 16; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/thr.2023.a903935
ISSN1939-9774
Autores Tópico(s)Disaster Response and Management
ResumoTriage Claudia Rankine (bio) I can say she started on an avenuenot a street. The avenue had the seductionsunlight dipping down can bring to a place. She turned a corner as I looked up, distractedby the sky’s texture, its softnessalmost tangible, though, I confess to you now, beauty was communicated only by a red-orangetint in the morning light,bleeding, as it does, into hi-rise windows. “Red sky in the morning” some kind of sing-song-dribbleclaiming the scene. Rhyme, fable, legend,fisherman’s fodder. Now that we have arrived in the time of no future, whyhave an old adage admonish her before noon? Still my memory of this daywill remain in all her tomorrows,even as she steps right through the beauty of now. To catch up with her means no longer seeking.To overtake her means she’s no longer there. No cars approach as she is enveloped by a crowdcrossing against the light. I wait. There existsno turn she can take as she adjuststo being carried along here where the street widenslike a river among trees, dirt, and darkness. She could turn in but why would shego where she wouldn’t be seen, [End Page 99] or where she is the only one seen,by whoever waits among trees. Why would she,after all the shes taken in by the trees? The straighter the walk the more relaxed each step,her hips swing freely, her shoulders curve down.I won’t note that for the future. It’s the oppositethat gets noted, the tension. The clenched fingers.The quickened step. The rush. The turn.A sudden stop. She’s tripped. Distracted by what? An unplanned thought?It’s difficult to anticipate what’s touched upongiven nothing is known beforehandwith a subject who wanders. In memory of Mahsa Amini [End Page 100] Claudia Rankine claudia rankine is the author of five books of poetry, including Citizen: An American Lyric. Her recent collection of essays, Just Us: An American Conversation, was published by Graywolf Press in 2020. She is also co-editor of several anthologies, including The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind, and she co-founded The Racial Imaginary Institute (trii) in 2016. A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Rankine joined the NYU Creative Writing Program in Fall 2021. Copyright © 2023 Claudia Rankine
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