My little brother has the sweetest dimples

as if honey dipped happiness puddles on his brown chin

Legs made to run and he’s barely one

I hope he’s quick

burdened by forever fitting the description

I hope he’s fast

with those slave feet

fast enough to beat a speeding mal-intent militant bullet

cruising through your hood in cruisers

I can’t breathe

imagining him laid out

like a Law & Order: SVU scene

flashing on the TV screen

The grand jury content with no indictment

Look, I’m no Al Sharpton

but

Fred Hampton,

Rodney King, Emmett Till,

Amadou Diallo, Ousmane Zongo, Timothy Stansbury,

Sean Bell, Bernard Bailey, Jahzeph Crooks, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner,

Akai Gurley, Oscar Grant III, Ernest Duenez, Christopher Middleton, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown,

my  father, my cousin, my brother

They all deserve better

than a supped up militarized Jim Crow task force

The truth is

they shoot dissenters and threats down like dominoes

it takes too long to turn on the hose

get the dogs

and lynching ropes I guess

Cops kill boys that look like me

all natural haired and sun baked skin

suspect or not

no one wants to die here

Why does your split decision always shatter his life like porcelain

dolls tap dance on bloodied pavement

that all the world’s perfumes cannot sweeten

They unload clips

We turn on each other with weapons

and the violence

spins this world on it’s axis

What if I have a son…

What if I came home and my husband…