Poem Always Having to Repeat Itself
BY DARNELL “DEESOUL” CARSON
Gone. Another boy soul-broken.
A headline runs, but does not show the blood
left in its wake, the name my mother will know
by morning. We stop finding crumbs to hold
on to, prayers held in the body’s stillness,
its cold bones settling bruise-blue.
We acquit the cops, their hands, bury their bullets
under our tongues, like our dead.
Their names live on even longer than we do.
*
Even longer than we do, their names live on.
From under our tongues our dead rise,
bury their bullets in the hands of the cops we acquitted.
Our stomachs unsettle; we bone-cold
at the bruise-blue, still body held in prayer.
Hold on to crumbs we stop finding. My mother
will know the mourning by name, the blood left
in its wake. A headline never shown:
Broken soul, running. Another boy. Gone.
