On Calling the Cops
It took us this long to slow our dying
down to a languid and sensible pace
wherein the sugar might claim each our limbs
but never in one fell and vicious swoop
how irony does when the voice you use
to summon a state-hired cavalry
is also the one used to beg of them
to not create a Calvary where you stand
and make you a Christ begat from gun-smoke
so rules the nation’s practice of mishap
which reads the skin like a type of license
before any righteous explanation
just as the weapon gives its sovereign word
puckers its steel mouth to decide your name
by Rasheed Copeland
from Split This Rock