Between classes and meetings with students
I find myself
Looking up images of the physical difference
Between a taser and a gun
Then laws against air freshener
Then I stop myself for falling into the trap
Reminding myself
A comb
Wallet
Plastic toy
Water pistol
Afro pick
Cigar box
Cigarettes
Loosies
Hoodie sweatshirts
Using the back door
Standing in a yard
Jumping a turnstile
Spraying graffiti
Air freshener
20 dollars counterfeit or real
No matter what they say
Are not causes to murder Black men
Just as youth killing each other over sneakers
Isn’t about sneakers
Police killing Black men and women
Are about root causes
Underlying conditions
Such as racism.
***
Pamela Sneed is a New York-based poet, performer, visual artist, and educator. She is the author of Funeral Diva (City Lights Books, 2020), Sweet Dreams (Belladonna*, 2018), KONG (Vintage Entity Press, 2009), Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery (Holt, 1998), and others. Sneed has performed the Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Poetry Project, The High Line, the New Museum, and the Toronto Biennale. She appears in Nikki Giovanni’s “The 100 Best African American Poems,” and has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes.
Image Credit: Patricia Silva
