To Make It to Heaven

My father, hovered

by the police, searches

for air -- I Can’t Breathe! --

Like the queens and kings

before him, dragged from

their homes, knives to

throat.

 

Slave ship, 1841 --

Hear Solomon’s silent thoughts

of wicked cursing, hissing

I Can’t Breathe!

His wife pleading against

the bare deck, left cheek

iron-branded.

See Eliza’s

baby girl snatched

from her mother’s bosoms.

12 years old: carrying a mulatto

fetus, child of a master.

 

There’s nothing more

but a school-to-prison

pipeline, the new Jim Crow

laws still transporting my

people to the new incarceration.

Punished like Frederick,

not allowed to read or write.

I can hear their crying

I Can’t Breathe!

echoing through the jail cells,

and humming the gospel

“Roll Jordan, Roll!”

 

Necks lynched

by the white gleaming stars

of the American flag, as

we march down

the Boston Commons, harmonizing

“Roll Jordan Roll!

because we want our brother to make

it to heaven and hear

Jordan roll!”

He will enter the gates,

soulfully singing

I CAN’T BREATHE!

I CAN’T BREAThe!

            I CAN’T BREathe!

                                                I CAN’T Breathe!

                                                                                      I CAN’t breathe!

I Can’t breathe!

                         I can’t breathe!

                                                             i can’t breathe!