Sometimes the red symbol
on a white background
is a swastika on a Sheboygan garage in 2017
sometimes it is the Kimberly High School “K”
on the KHS_white_club Instagram account
posted on the first day of Black History Month in 2021
terror remains, alive today: it did not die by cyanide
in a Berlin bunker in 1945; it was not crushed by the crowd
surrounding King below Lincoln’s gaze in 1963
the stain is darker than the paint
more vivid than the graphics on the screen
not dead and gone, not distant memory
it spreads like a virus, appearing here
now there, no matter how quickly
we scrub it, delete it, or wish it away.