A Poem for Renée Good and Her Poetry
And for all of us who won't look away from the writing on the wall.
This piece addresses sensitive subject matter: state violence against marginalized people, including the murder of Renée Nicole Good, with allusions to other forms of violence.
“Fucking bitch.”
Today marks three months since the United States federal government committed the murder of Renée Nicole Macklin Good, via the hand of ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
The American Empire has used many similarly fragile men — indoctrinated into white male supremacy via the shame inflicted on them, by design, by that very same unjust hierarchy — as blunt instruments with which to murder many other human beings.
All of us who are paying attention are aware of how the United States Empire exploits these men to abuse and murder, especially, people who are Black, Brown, Indigenous, and/or immigrants. Those of us who have been paying extra close attention are aware of how the US Empire also exploits these men to abuse and murder people who defy the artificial, coerced reproductive categories necessary to generate mass quantities of laborers for empire to extract value from — especially women who are Transgender.
The murder of our fallen sister-comrade Renée Nicole Good is not more important than all the other abuses and murders the US Empire commits. But all of us who have been paying attention know that when the white supremacist empire starts murdering even white cisgender women right out in the street, on video, something has shifted.
We who have been paying attention know that anyone is fair game now if they slightly stand in the way of the collapsing empire’s desperate flailing for absolute domination.
As its agents’ masks go up, the empire’s mask falls off.
I worked on the piece below for over a month, then nearly didn’t post it. But given all the above, three months later I find myself still thinking about our stolen sister Renée, about the US’s murder of her, about the symbolism of it all — and about her poem.
This poem is dedicated to Renée Nicole Macklin Good, to the many people who love her, and to everyone who has been changed by the empire’s ever-present violence.
Pour les « renées »
1
there’s a poetry to it:
her name was even Good
just to really rub it in.
we saw her fawn and recognized
that’s how Survivors do.
we bore witness
as she was taken
not even for her Good,
but merely for observing —
and to punish her wife
for standing strong
and being loved.
and after the empire
made sure we saw
that they aim to kill,
we found her poem
about the tensions:
between matter and spirit;
between faith and observation;
between the value of life
and our lives.
we would never have found it
unless and until
Renée Nicole
was gone
for good.
—
2
there are two ways to witness
who a person really is:
rarely, with Good in abundance;
and when the gun is raised.
we see now who she was
in her abundance:
an observer
gives birth to
a poet.
a mother
bears
a witness.
and we all witnessed
who she was
when the gun was raised:
a Survivor —
a name that’s neither
birth nor choice,
but given.
a name about what was taken, yet
a name that never leaves us, yet
a name that, more than any other,
is always
temporary.
there’s a poetry to it:
even her name was Good
to make sure we saw
what they aim to kill.
but before she took that name,
the first one she was given
means Reborn.
—
3
violence haunts bodies
the same way as houses.
there’s even a poetry to it:
anxious questions replay
on an endless, grisly loop —
keeping us stuck in place, in time,
until someone else bears witness
and learns the lesson
we never could:
to what will my life be given?
by whom will i be taken?
will anyone remember
all that i mothered
in my rare abundance?
will anyone recognize
all that i Survived
long before the gun was raised?
will anyone find my
poetry?
a life can be wasted
wondering
how it will end.
but when you think
you know, you wonder
what, instead,
will be left of you.
which of my many names
will be borne in observance
when i am, inevitably,
taken?
when
they
kill
me,
will i, too,
be
Reborn Good?
—
4
you and me, we’ve seen it all
in poems scrawled on hallway walls
of the violent houses that haunt us.
and just like last time,
just like every time,
they’ll never listen.
but yes.
we knew.
we saw it coming.
they didn’t believe it.
they can’t confront it.
they won’t remember it.
but i remember.
i remember
what you’ve given,
and what was taken.
who was silent,
and who looked comfortable —
unmasked —
behind the masked man
who raised the gun.
who will be « les renaissants ? »
the countless shaken witnesses,
finally confronting all it says
right on the wall —
or those who have been taken
and rewritten to erase it?
—
5
and after the empire
in the bodies and rubble
when they find our
smoking poems
and inevitably
reduce the countless taken
rewrite these dead
whole women
as violent radicals
and virgin mothers
there will always be one
left for dead
for good.
yes, there’s a kind of tragic
poetry to all of it
such metaphors in death
and death of metaphor
it kills you to observe
the writing on the wall
just all too tasteless to believe
the symbols all too blunt
to write
or dream.
but yes,
there will always be one
witness
left to haunt them
one woman
shaken
— Reborn,
except not Good —
and given again
the name Survivor
who remembers.
there’s always one left
standing strong
and countless others
being loved.
SINISTRA BLACK is a writer, filmmaker, and speaker. She doesn’t talk to strangers.