shot, killed

“I am trapped on a desert of raw gun­shot wounds
and a dead child drag­ging his shat­tered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punc­tured cheeks and shoul­ders
is the only liq­uid for miles
and my stom­ach
churns at the imag­ined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
with­out loy­al­ty or rea­son
thirst­ing for the wet­ness of his blood
as it sinks into the white­ness
of the desert where I am lost
with­out im­agery or mag­ic
try­ing to make pow­er out of ha­tred and de­struc­tion
try­ing to heal my dy­ing son with kiss­es
only the sun will bleach his bones quick­er.”
—Au­dre Lorde, from Pow­er

 

In April 1973, a 10 year old Black child named Clif­ford Glover was shot in the back by a plain clothes po­lice of­fi­cer.

The of­fi­cer, Thomas Shea was the first NYPD of­fi­cer to ever be charged and go to tri­al for mur­der. He was found in­no­cent by his pre­dom­i­nant­ly White jury and faced no penal­ties, even though he was caught on tape lean­ing over the dead child’s body and say­ing “Die you lit­tle moth­er­fuck­er.”

He also pro­fessed to shoot­ing him be­cause of his “col­or.”

In re­sponse to this atroc­i­ty, Au­dre Lorde wrote Pow­er one of the most stun­ning and heartwrench­ing pieces of po­et­ry ever writ­ten.

I keep play­ing the ex­cerpt (above) from this poem in my mind as I try to imag­ine the pain and trau­ma felt by the Black com­mu­ni­ty right now.

The whole piece can be found here.

#BLM

 

—na­tal­ie michelle

Flom­mist Na­tal­ie Michelle does­n’t have a bio. She just rants. Copy­right © 2020 Na­tal­ie Michelle.

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