We Hold These Truths

Mitchell Nobis

photo credit: Mitchell Nobis

I dream of my children sleeping through nights,
warm in blankets they’ve burrowed underneath
with certain unalienable Rights.

Like any father worried about frights,
I fret for their safety to the umpteenth.
I dream of my children sleeping through nights.

We pile books by bedsides, preparing for slights,
ready to brandish words free of their sheaths
with certain unalienable Rights.

But will the future pull guns, ready for fights
when my Black sons grow large, hit their sixteenths?
I dream of my children sleeping through nights.

They grow in a time that has seen all sights
but plows ahead, the good buried beneath
with certain unalienable Rights.

I carry deep sighs & hope for great heights—
the daytime is long on every Juneteenth.
I dream of my children sleeping through nights,
with certain unalienable Rights.

Mitchell Nobis is a writer and teacher in Metro Detroit where he lives with his wife and children. His poetry has appeared in Exposition Review, Roanoke Review, Hobart, and others. His manuscript was a finalist for the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize. @MitchNobis