Emma Bolden


Misericordia (et Misera)


Have mercy o Lord the poor become the pitied
become (the danger they face becomes the dagger
we use to destroy) unto the weak we have sung 

a new song (walled & smoke-bombed) for thine
is the milk of mercy (the children’s tear-gassed eyes)
have mercy o Lord (these hands we use to break) 

the bread your body crucified save us (from the need
for mercy the need for pity o have) mercy starts
in the center of the body the god inside us all 

a cord (of wood burning & burning) have mercy
o Lord may we feel the wind shift & rise (up the hands
of thousands more clean than ours) have mercy o 

Lord our own wall up & against us (a nation crowned
with barbed wire) to keep ourselves unbothered
by bone & body voiced & begging for a mercy 

(dies when we look into the mirror & can only see
ourselves) to save what is the worth of one person
without the want to worth others (asylum as ancient 

as the bush & its burning lost) from our hearts o God
bless us (not when we hold our hands to the mirror
& see them clean) by highway & wire, wolf-night & knife 

(following the smoke song of thousands asking for salvation)
o Lord let us see us our own (not the mirror & hand
unbloodied unblemished let us see) as our own every 

step towards a place the starred night (promised them
as us as mercy as freedom) o Lord we do not deserve
(until we unshackle, unshame) to learn that nothing 

is guaranteed except need.

Emma Bolden

Emma Bolden is the author of House Is an Enigma (Southeast Missouri State University Press), medi(t)ations (Noctuary Press), and Maleficae (GenPop Books). The recipient of an NEA Fellowship, her work has appeared in such journals as the Mississippi Review, The Rumpus, StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, New Madrid, TriQuarterly, Shenandoah, and the Greensboro Review. She currently serves as Associate Editor-in-Chief for Tupelo Quarterly.

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