On May 13, 1985 Wilson Goode, Philadelphia’s first Black 
mayor, authorized the bombing of 6221 Osage Avenue 
after the complaints of neighbors, also Black, about the 
Afrocentric back-to-nature group headquartered there 
and calling itself Move. All the members of the group 
wore dreadlocks and had taken the surname Africa. In the 
bombing eleven people, including children, were killed 
and sixty-one homes in the neighborhood were destroyed. 

they had begun to whisper
among themselves – hesitant
to be branded neighbor to the wild
haired women the naked children
reclaiming a continent
away

move

he hesitated
then turned his smoky finger
toward africa toward the house
he might have lived in might have
owned or saved had he not turned
away
move
the helicopter rose at the command
higher at first then hesitating
then turning toward the center
of its own town only a neighborhood
away

move

she cried as the child stood
hesitant in the last clear sky
he would ever see         the last
before the whirling blades the whirling smoke
and sharp debris carried all clarity
away

move

if you live in a mind
that would destroy itself
to comfort itself
if you would stand fire
rather than difference
do not hesitate
move
away