TAKING A KNEE

Breathing while black

Is not something

I would wish on anybody.

Especially since we attack

Yet at the same time cling

To the idea we are equal and free.

We’re not.

Not when the knee

Of a white cop

Presses on the neck

Of a black man who beck-

Ons Him to stop,

That he simply went to shop

With his last twenty

From his lack of plenty

That the bill wasn’t a fake.

And, please, help me momma, for God’s sake!

God I get. Man I don’t.

He wants us to love all

But for some reason we won’t

We’d rather on all fours crawl

Fueled by the vitriol of hate

Than stand upright on two straight.

When will we learn

To our higher selves turn,

Look each other in the I

And see

That we

Are all the same,

That we all too, all too soon, will die?

That isn’t a pity. It is our shame.

You think he’s not your equal.

You think he should not be free.

Yet another black and white sequel

Where the victim takes a knee.

6/3/2020