Something Is Going On

•

When one 18 year old is killed,
you think, maybe he did have a gun
like the police said he did,
or at least a part of you wonders,

when a second is killed,
you think maybe he was a drug dealer
as they said and the police didn’t do
so badly,

but at a conference
when 25 Black mothers
tell their stories,
each independently of the other,

they had all dealt
with this separately,
but as the years went on,
there were more and more of them,

and only now
did they decide to step forward,
you did not know death
had undone so many,

each with a different look on their face,
different details, same story,
with the same outrage
and desperate stillness,
same river of tears,

as if they weren’t telling this story to you,
but to all people generations from now,
all the children and their children
and their children’s children,

and the Latino mothers
and the Asian mothers,
and the Palestinian mothers
and the white mothers

bringing the audience
with their rough hewn
eloquence
to its knees,

you suddenly realize
they couldn’t have
all talked to each other
beforehand,

how shameful that you doubted them,
it had to have happened,
the way they said
it did,

the description over the police radio,
the kid walking by, the sun in the sky,
the cops didn’t see the wallet he whipped out,
in the enemy neighborhood all they saw was his black skin,

shooting first and asking questions later,
the blood pouring out,
the silence and then the screams
after the gunshot,

and then no sooner than the body fell
did the coverup begin,

the stop was legal,
he had a bulge that was suspicious

he whipped out a gun
that wasn’t found,
besides, he had
a criminal record

the brazen way they lied
at the grand jury

it had to have happened,
the way they said it did,

though what that says
about the coroner
and the newspaper reporters
and the district attorney

who so quietly added
their voices to the chorus

you shudder
to think

an arrogance born
of being an occupation army,
an arrogance from years
of getting away with it

but one too many times,
one too many coincidences,
one too many lies,

these mothers,
gathered together
at this conference now,
calling them on it,

and you, who believed them,
how stupid to have
believed them
all these years,

never again,
the mothers say

never again,
never again

although you are white
and they are black
something joins you
to them

at the same time
something breaks
in you
utterly,

you who thought
you were
so smart,

you, who thought
you were
so slick

but enough is enough,
no use crying over the past,

all that water flowing
under the bridge

you have to start
somewhere

maybe this is
is as good a place
as any
to begin

the blood on the ground,
the screams and the racism,

it had to have happened
the way they said it did,

the mothers gathered
together now,
here
at the conference

so many people,
so many tears

each story heartbreakingly
the same
and yet at the same time
amazingly different,

it had to have
happened
the way they said
it did,

you finally
decide,
something is
going on