Black girls go missing, faces not found
on milk cartons or Discovery I.D.
Same with Native American women.
Do the math, calculate the equation
that defines the American psyche,
the amniotic fluid we float in
blind to the snuff film that plays
over and over in a theatre where only
the rich have the price of admission.
Each laugh, gesture, clearing of the throat
erupts from the Om of that home,
a concentration camp song, where we strive
until we die, and those born of our bodies
grow to fill our shoes, put on our raincoats,
inherit the cataracts in our eyes
How, dear God of human beings,
do we witness murder, corroborated
in the mirror of a billion eyes
yet contemplate innocence, this
or that defense, a technicality, some
evil Trump card played, playing us?
(poem of mine appearing in Inkwell Journal)