A Chicago native, Lor Clincy orients her work in all things real and raw. She references her upbringing and identity, exploring the layers of her life in contained transparency often wondering what she can process next. She received her BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her work, as a teen, was published at Syracuse University through a summer creative writing program, and The Chicago Beat. Last summer, her chapbook, RESOLVE, was published by BottleCap Press. Her recent poetry has been published in Foothill Poetry Journal’s Fall 2023 issue. She will appear in ALLIUM: A Journal of Poetry and Prose in Spring 2024. Currently, Lor is a MFA student in the English and Creative Writing program at Columbia College Chicago. Follow her on her website and Instagram.
For the Condemned
- after 79th, Kwabena Foli
I considered his mother a victim, ruined by the carrying. I’ve
measured his father as Creator, a concept destroyed
by freedom. Seldom do we frequent her grief. Somebody’s
daughter conceived a baby on her own, and the world
worships her. We hold tight to belief that his father shaped universe once.
He gave rage. Made men in his image, made Mary like me.
How many sons die on crosses for their father and
why must their mothers bury their bodies? To have a God
is to know how to surrender. On knees, we do not know
you can plead standing, an amen lingering, each
before phases of timid silence. I imagine her anguish and his wrath as other.
This is the lament the son carried as he bled, accepting that
his father’s will surpassed his own. This was the only way.
His story is unique in its prevalence, taught
men to obey the first time they are called to die. Taught me
salvation has less to do with free will and all to do with obedience. How
many sons die on crosses, anticipating their fathers to
call them home? Bleating, the lamb becomes the shepherd: be
mindful of the fields, the hills, on their own, roll still.
His mother wrapped him, read his body’s bones, and
held them until he settled. How
many fathers leave their sons to succumb to
their wounds? But he was resting, the lamb said. Be
mindful of the fields, the hills roll still. She wept, afraid to admit he had been used.
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