by Nancy Christopherson
BLACK LIVES MATTER
--dedicated to George Floyd (Oct. 14, 1973-May 25, 2020)
The year tips on its ear.
Joy’s last curve along the lines of Yes
and I Can’t Breathe.
I Can’t Breathe will
echo for decades maybe centuries long after
a gentle brother’s passing.
An innocent man bound hand-to-hand on the street
cuffed, choked and murdered (intentionally!)
by yet another white police officer
abetted by three more cops, one of them Hmong
one of them Black (what!).
When will this end.
I say I Resist. I Resist. I Resist. I Resist this Vision
this State of Being
in this Sad State of a so-called Free Nation
that we may stay alive one more day.
My Secret Black Body inside your Sacred Black Bodies.
I want you alive my friends.
I want us to live.
Listen to the birds sing Joy at us. Joy! Spring!
Live.
I can’t say there’s a goddamned God anymore.
How could it just stand there
and watch
as an INNOCENT! man pleads for his life and dies.
How could
there be such a False Hope.
Answer me, cop.
BLACK. LIVES. MATTER.
--May 25, 2020, Minneapolis, MN
About the Author
Nancy Christopherson's poems have appeared in Helen Literary Magazine, Peregrine Journal, Raven Chronicles, Third Wednesday, Verseweavers and Xanadu, among others, as well as various regional anthologies,. New work is forthcoming in the UK and Canada. Author of "The Leaf," she lives and writes in eastern Oregon. Visit www.nancychristophersonpoetry.com.
