American Sonnet for Park Heights/Butterfly Praxis/No Kings
by ZAHRA GORDON
in Spring 2026
Neville Barbour II, “ShanGOGO,” 2026
American Sonnet for Park Heights
In oral history Park Heights was a crown of orchards
of peaches plucked from abundant black branches.
Park Heights was a praise song for plums, a purple
melody, bruised. Down Bottom was a berry farm blooming
spring into cerulean, obsidian, scarlet. Up Top was an ode
to nectarine harvests as ripe as summer, a pregnant pear tree
picked from bellyful to barren, persimmons skinned and scooped.
It was the first and last honeycrisp cored into a mottled September.
Park Heights was an elderberry tincture, spirit soaked, saved.
This village was a sonnet for the persistent widow bestowing shelter
from her porch: I prayed for you. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew
prayer. I knew you was weathering a storm.
Thank you became a crocus bag for arduous fruit,
the burlap threads at the archive’s fingertips.
Butterfly Praxis
There isn't always a house burning when you hear sirens;
sometimes it's a checkerspot, imperiled.
Sometimes when engine 29 or 52 drives past the EMTs
are heading to black tiger swallowtail resuscitation.
Sometimes a pedestrian is lateral recumbent on York Road.
Sometimes it's 27 monarchs whose wings collapsed in Penn North.
Sometimes it's a panic attack on Liberty Heights or a six year old
with a gunshot wound on Queensberry.
There isn't always fire; sometimes it's a mourning cloak who can't
breathe through the mesh.
No Kings
The democracy of space is the three
lanes between protesters and panhandler.
Contrasting placards occupying Northern
Parkway separate as countries. The island,
a forlorn plea Please spare some change
for the homeless. The pavement latent
with rage I am the Aunt Ifa / Sin Reyes
One side of the street Star Spangled,
the middle stateless.
Meanwhile, the tyranny of space
exists between belated donations
passing through disparate hands.
The fleeting time as the number
30 bus pulls off carrying the pauper
from Roland Ave towards a home,
a sign: If you’re not a billionaire,
you’re screwed.
Zahra Gordon is a Caribbean poet and writer. Her work has been published in journals such as Intersect, Mantis and the anthology Thicker Than Water (Peekash Press, 2018). In 2015, her work was longlisted for the Hollick Arvon Prize for Caribbean Writers. Gordon is an alumna of Howard University and the University of Baltimore. Find her online: zahragordon.com.
