William Evans | Reverse Abecedarian Where Achilles Dies in the Middle

William Evans is an author, speaker, performer, and instructor from Columbus, Ohio. He is the founder of the Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam and the co-founder and editor-in chief of BlackNerdProblems.com, a website focused on pop culture and diversity. William is a Callaloo Fellow, the poetry recipient of 2016 Sustainable Arts Foundation Grant, the 2018 Spirit of Columbus Foundation Grant and the inaugural Blackburn Fellow as an MFA candidate at Randolph College. His latest collection, We Inherit What The Fires Left, was published by Simon & Schuster in March 2020.

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November 3, 2020
Poets Resist
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William Evans

Reverse Abecedarian Where Achilles Dies in the Middle

— for Marshawn McCarrel 1993-2016, who drew his last breath in protest

Zoo of small secrets, the caged animals you held were never silent. Who were the Balius and Xanthus that pulled you into warring lands that you held no allegiance for? Forever vandal. The wind cut in the shape of your hybrid drawl. Umber-shaded demigod. A spear with a slick tongue. You began as most boys, I assume. Pulled from the river Styx, still shimmering like you wouldn’t dare end a world. Resurrection was a made-up word for quiet Blacks with destined futures. Pantheon of sacrifices. We were always a ripe offering for those who wanted war, who never wanted to spill themselves. You were made mortal at the end. You gathered a brief life and left it and all its legend at the gates of your killers. What I remember most, were your hands joining at the palms when you were thinking, imitating a prayer but you had so little use to indulge in gospel. You were thinking how you needed a good forge to break the world open. You would grin, subtle like an earthquake. I could see the tremors along your jaw dance. I could imagine another life when you would crane your neck skyward and the light would break across you. The sun would find your face then, as if you knew exactly where that other life was.

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