Bodies

A poem I wrote in 2020, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.

My fingers are tired of tweeting hashtags that carry names whose bodies lay in caskets.

That’s all they seem to do lately.

It’s funny how

My tongue has memorised carefully each syllable of their name

Re/ki/a

Ste/phon

Bang! There

Bang! Goes

Bang! Another

Bang! Body

Their  memory

Is dying in the minds of many.

Their blood is venged for two days

And then forgotten.

We are privileged enough

To be alive to still mourn their death

My skin is worried it will follow this fate

That a gun will be the last thing to meet my eye

Or not even,

And that the metal will be forgiven over my breath

And that I will be another body

Gone.