Killed by a Cop

the condition of black life is one of mourning

— Claudia Rankine

what’s hardest for me to grasp 

when a black person is killed

in particular, killed by a cop

is that they are dead & will stay dead

not live another day of their life

while the cop will stay alive 

& stay a cop & possibly kill more

black people while the rest of us 

stand around as if we don’t mind

if we minded, no cop would ever 

kill another black person, it’s that

simple, that plain, we would rise up 

& take those bad cops down &

if we couldn’t tell the good cops 

from the bad cops, we would

take every cop down & start over

perhaps you & I would become cops

we with our wrinkles & thinning hair

& fake joints, we would be cops

simply because we could not kill

a black person, we would die first