I Heard 


There is a pipe in Indianapolis. A big one. It’s 42 in wide and carries raw sewage under the Monon Corridor between Broad Ripple and Fall Creek. But it also carries a deeper meaning. It was built to solve a problem in a predominantly white, affluent neighborhood by transferring it to a historically black and marginalized one. Prior to the pipes installation, sewer overflows regularly fouled the White River in Meridian Hills and Broad Ripple when it rained. Residents in the affluent enclaves complained. So the City built a four-mile pipeline — at a cost of nearly $7 million — diverting that sewage from south where it dumps into Fall Creek, home to many low-income, minority residents. This pipe is one of many that carries sewage to Indianapolis’ Waters. There now is an effort to fix the city sewer system. But few people realize it was not just environmental concerns that ultimately led to the DigIndy tunnel, a $2 billion dollar project now nearing completion, which promises to keep sewage out of the city waterways. 


It was a civil rights issue. 



water be a measure of memory. only remembers bodies, not right from wrong. it flows for whoever 

tells it to. remember this: 

there is no Moses here 

& White River aint 

no red sea. is this why 

it seems like God 

never showed up? 

never asked us to 

mark our doorways 

with the blood 

of a sacred lamb? 

they, too, was killed 

by the water. in the wilderness, 

anyone can take a rod 

& hit a rock, call it clean water 

even though out came sewage 

from the Monan to Fall Creek 

to the White River.

i’ve heard they call this side of 

town Babylon & was it not 

already wet with grief 

in Babylon in the bible?

      water is there, but no one  

no one said it’s clean. 

& aint we parched too? 

aint we wandering  

in the wilderness? 

are we feral beings

because there is no 

Moses?  i had a friend

get into the water, once, 

when we were younger 

in the ‘70s. he was baptized 

in grime. clothes colored black 

& he smelled like death 

as the gunk from the sewage 

covered him up. were we, 

the Black people 

on the Westside 

of the White River, 

the sacrifice? 

or our children? 

was our humanity, 

the sacrifice 

for your comfort?

water slips into pipes 

of the poor & 

remembers the bodies