wildscape. literary journal

New Mourning
by Antino Art

This was 11:59 p.m. on election night. 
This was a red mirage. This was a hypersonic 
nuclear missile. This was the indigenous soil 
that soaked up the centuries of bloodshed. 
This was a fire. This was Ella Baker's voice on 
MLK Blvd. This was a black- or minority-owned 
business that kept bars on the windows to stay open. 
This was a speeding bullet at the Moore Square bus stop. 
This was a hundred grand of state taxes burned on mulch 
and a fence for the dogs. This block was affordable before the 
cranes lifted urban rent into the sky. This was a protest, not
a performance. This was a movement, not a marketing plan. 
This was every color on one indivisible flag torn apart. 
This was a portrait of pro-Black Thought as genius and Blue 
Scholar work as art. This was #OneNationUnderGuns. 
This was a struggle to explain to the children. 
This was a school zone before it was a war zone in Sandy Hook 
/ Parkland / Hedingham / Home Sweet Home. This was a blue dot 
in a climate emergency. This was murder, a suicide attempt, or 
an overdose. This was a grim statistic. This was a profile shot that kept 
getting swiped to the far left. This was a tent city that kept getting 
swept off the sidewalk. This was a gated community with a 
barbed wire fence. This was what the people wanted. This was hard. 
This was routine in another country where the regime 
prompted the revolution. This was history painted over and 
over. 

This was a new morning. This was you, and me, refusing 
to look back.

NOTE: New Mourning originally appeared in a 2025 Artspace exhibition as the ekphrastic caption for Hallowed Heart, a jet-black canvas painted by NC artist Nik Winghart.

about the author // Antino Art