Describe Turner to MLK

I The weight of my son at the emergency room for an eye injury, sack of flour, sack of salt, dusty bag of bones collapsed after all those tears. Why does Turner come to mind, those shackled ankles, those drowning slaves? II And horizons. Each measure, each cleaving of flesh to soil, breath to sentence, body toward earth. The shepherd watches his flock cross the stream; nymphs bathe and flirt and sun themselves on rocks. Water against ankles, pebbles beneath feet. III An old woman sits next to us, and every time she shifts in her seat, I can hear her bones click. Dying, her faulty architecture like an old radiator, cooling engine. IV The burden of seeing, explosive sunlight, the swirling painted water pouring over Turner’s slaves. My son sleeps. Have you ever walked out into the sticky heat of a Memphis night and asked for gunshots to stop for just one hot hour? O heap of body, heap of bones, heap of dreams, heap of moans. V A story with a happy ending and no answers, slight corneal scratch healed with anti-bacterial rinse, the eyeball’s protective pocket cupping the universe like a calm inlet offering a foundering ship protection from rough seas. You tell me: What washes blood from a balcony? I’m listening. I’m saying please. The sun rises quickly. And so do sea monsters.