The Better Angles of Our Nature

Renee Nicole Good

Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026

by Amanda Gorman

They say she is no more,

That there he absense roars,

Blood-blown like a rose,

Iced wheels flinched & froze,

Now bare riot of candles,

Dark fury of flowers,

Pure howling of hymns.

If for us she arose,

Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief,

Crouches our power,

The howl where we begin,

Straining upon the edge of the crooker crater

Of the worst of what we’ve been.

Change is only possible,

& all the greater,

When the labor

& bitter anger of our neighbors

Is moved by the love

& the better angles of our nature.