Gravity Offended

The sun rises in the east

as Black and brown communities are forced

to finger paint with the blood of their children

the red lines on the flag of a nation

that takes no note of them and

expects them to continue on,

stepping over injustice,

business as usual because

the world stops for no one.

The blood of White children drips

and things have suddenly shifted.

The sun rises in the west

and Everyone must take note.

The tides pull backwards,

dragging the moon limply behind them

and Everyone must take note.

Gravity is upended and

the cows rise in the air with udders flailing,

passed by a picnic table

with neat checkered cloth,

the pristine fence posts

launching haphazardly into the air one by one,

and the elderly woman

chasing her television

which has just passed into orbit,

projecting for all to hear

in the soundless void of space:

How White rapists are only sweet boys poking fun;

How Black children are young adults who should know better;

How time can always be made to air the stories of kidnapped

sweet, innocent White angels;

How White people want America to be White Again;

and how White babies are getting murdered by Black giants

who swallow them whole with their feet first.

And shouldn’t we just take note how

White people apparently have this amazing power to stop the world

to mourn their grown and children,

their grief displayed on every network and screen floating on by when.

meanwhile.

the Black and brown bodies are stuck back down on gravity-less apocalyptic land,

weighed down by centuries and centuries of devastation

and their children’s corpses

which for all the world cares about them

might as well have been cotton underneath their feet.

Take note.