Lifted from the normally arthritic corridors of his suffering, he listened,
Aghast as all the asinine assumptions about loss and death,
About race and riots were spoken from rube mouths
Unaware of anything but pseudo-cerebral responses and knee-jerk assumptions.
Trembling, he moved to the couch, unaware of anything but the TV drone
And watched hour after hour the lack of leadership,
The loss of community, and the wild pairings popping up:
“Black” is “violent”, “they” are “thugs”, “we” need “police”;
They all were wrong. Sleepless, he led his sorrow around
And around the house until, exhausted,
It finally burst outwards, graphic, loud, lurid, even,
As his naked butt flapping in the frisky night air
Was the trigger which impelled the police that evening
To unload fourteen bullets into the body
Of one naked man, raving about injustice.
Rev. José M. Tirado is a poet, priest, psychologist, and political writer living in Iceland. He can be reached at jm.tirado@yahoo.com.