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