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By Pamela Sneed

Between classes and meetings with students

I find myself

Looking up images of the physical difference

Between a taser and a gun

Then laws against air freshener 

Then I stop myself for falling into the trap

Reminding myself

A comb

Wallet

Plastic toy

Water pistol

Afro pick

Cigar box

Cigarettes

Loosies

Hoodie sweatshirts

Using the back door

Standing in a yard

Jumping a turnstile 

Spraying graffiti

Air freshener

20 dollars counterfeit or real

No matter what they say

Are not causes to murder Black men

Just as youth killing each other over sneakers 

Isn’t about sneakers

Police killing Black men and women 

Are about root causes

Underlying conditions

Such as racism.

***

About the author:

Pamela Sneed is a New York-based poet, performer, visual artist, and educator. She is the author of Funeral Diva (City Lights Books, 2020), Sweet Dreams (Belladonna*, 2018), KONG (Vintage Entity Press, 2009), Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery (Holt, 1998), and others. Sneed has performed the Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Poetry Project, The High Line, the New Museum, and the Toronto Biennale. She appears in Nikki Giovanni’s “The 100 Best African American Poems,” and has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes.

Image Credit: Patricia Silva