Reflections of the 1967 Detroit Uprising: White Upriser on Griswold

Cops? The common enemy.
A cop who cuffed my brother
beat him back to ’63
for the nickel bag he stuffed in his pocket.

Race riot? It was
a race
to the untouched liquor stores and pharmacies.
No one messed with me.
I was just one of one hundred
grabbing hands.

All my long hair,
mirror shades,
blowing through stoplights.

All my give-a-fuck stuffed in a Rambler
with three Zeniths, five shotguns,
eight cases of who-knows-what
clinking with each bump.

Every cop I passed just stood,
slack-jawed, watching me
give him the finger,
the peace sign,
clenched fist and jaw.

Paul David Adkins lives in Northern NY. In 2018, Lit Riot published his collection Dispatches from the FOB. Journal publications include Pleiades, River Styx, Rattle, Diode, Baltimore Review, Crab Creek, and Whiskey Island. He has received five Pushcart nominations and three finalist nominations from Central NY Book Awards.