Unmoored from its original empirical underpinnings, particularly with respect to African Americans... ‘Blackness’ has become the symbolic assailant.
—Jeannine Bell, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Each Saturday at noon they practice the drill—
shrill shine in spring air like a child’s high-
pitch whine in a public sphere
where everyone can hear—
so when the real storm
arrives, we’ll fly down
basement steps or insulate
ourselves in inner rooms,
to save ourselves—
but what horn warned
John Crawford III
that fiddling with a bb gun
in the middle of a Walmart aisle
while chatting on his cell
would be his sirens’ song
full of sound and fury signifying
assailant, that 9-1-1 wouldn’t
bring aid but grave
in a half-second flat?
What bell rang
for Breonna Taylor,
who climbed into bed, reaching
for her beloved, for a good night’s
rest, not knowing it’d be eternal
& irredeemable?
O, something wicked that way
came, & keeps on coming:
It knows no caution & hides
in plain sight. Sly & slick,
it slithers through amber
waves of grain, through the rocks
of ages. Did you see it
funneling all its strength
as it chased
Ahmaud Arbery
on the road,
nipping at his heels,
mowing him down?
And after,
did you see
its twisted tail
slide across his fallen
flesh & hear
its overdue alarm
roar like Chimera
used to snort,
sense its
white-
tipped tongue
wagging
as it left?