My Students See Emmett Till's Body

They don’t look away,
though I’ve warned that there’s no
shame in turning their heads,
that when Emmett’s mother says
People should see, they will see
what they can’t un-see. The shape
above the buttoned collar of the shirt
confusing, what is it?
A thing in a suit.
The nose is what gives it away
makes it plain that this is a face
of a boy their age, their same
taffy color. Gabriel in the back row
touches his own nose lightly
with his own dark finger.
He traces its edges
While Jasmine frames her face
with her hands, covers her eyes
and mouth, then uncovers them
to see how Emmett’s nose orients
the other features of his face,
provides a center to the swelling,
now they see, of the cheek,
his mouth, now they see it,
it’s a mouth. Davina’s mouth
is a pressed-tight line.
When she turns to me, her eyes
are wells of un-knowing.
I don’t know what she’s thinking.
Tonight I’ll go home and look
at my own face in the mirror.
I won’t know what I’m thinking
except that I have a nose
that no one wants to hack
from my face, skin the color
of cottonseed mixed with blood,
the white of a mother’s red-rimmed eye.
I have a neck no one wants
to barb or break, a face that
a white man would break
a black boy’s neck for looking at
too long or in the wrong way
or not at all.
I have two eyes to look
at whatever I want, a mouth,
unbroken teeth, a tongue,
a voice I don’t know
what to do with. But if I knew
how to whistle, wouldn’t I?