Cariol channeled
Fannie Lou, meeting white rage
dressed in blue that throttled
Black breath with bear hug
headlock,
& yanked the uniform’s
manly collar, traded blow
for blow, throwing
her fists in rhyme
to the mantra keeping
time: by any means
necessary.
When IA cleared
Kwiatkowski,
not Officer Horne,
when he sued her
& won, when her
car became her home,
she sang I will
overcome.
And 15 years,
180 months,
65,700 days,
1,576,800 hours
later—
after he
pled guilty in 2011
to civil rights
violations against
4 Black teens
whose heads
& torsos he shel-
lacked & shoved
into a cruiser,
after he spent 4
months in jail—
after 12 year-olds
DeAunta Terrel
Farrow & Tamir
Rice bled out
with toys
in hand,
after Charleena
Chavon Lyles
& the baby
in her womb
were christened
with an ungodly
spray (she
thought police
devils & KKK),
after Terence Crutcher,
Philando Castile,
& Alton Sterling,
after matriarch
& Missionary Baptist
“Betty Boo” Jones
received
an offering
of lead the day
after Christmas,
never to raise her voice
in the choir again—
after Sandra Bland,
after beloved Juniors,
Freddie Carlos Gray
& Michael Brown,
after John Crawford III,
after Eric Garner
could no longer savor
the flavor of American
air, after Miriam
Irish Carey’s wrong
turn
drew 26 bullets
from Capitol Police
(who didn’t hesitate
then), after Alesia Thomas
got kicked in her legs,
her abdomen, her groin—
barbarian at her L.A.
gate!—
after Aiyana Mo'Nay
Stanley-Jones
caught a slug
in her seven year-old
skull, after Tarika Wilson
embraced her son
while a cop rendered
a grotesque
of Madonna & child,
after Botham Jean
& Breonna Taylor
learned a house
can become a noose,
after George Floyd
cried for his mother
with his last, agonizing
gasp,
after
Daunte Demetrius Wright—
finally,
finally,
finally,
this fierce
& beautiful Black
woman, with a law
now in her name,
heard the judge proclaim,
the time is always right
to do right.