Ahmaud Arbery

If I were lynched in the streets

My children would avenge me

The moon with her sling 

The star with her bone

And my wife 

River

With a cauldron

What I mean is

Hands off the black godhood

Because you see

If

We had trapped a white man

Between two cars

And shot him down

No guns fired

I’d be in a black site jail

Until the klu klux klan

Had their grand jury

Instead I put my head

Between two lips

And wait for corona

To take my six times more likely black self

To sankofa

Sankofa, a Black person’s Valhalla

And if you don’t believe me

Believe that for running

You can lynch a Black man

But we won’t stop running

Not when cops say

Drop your skin or we’ll shoot

Not when doctors claim we don’t feel pain

Not when billboards say we don’t father the children we raised

Not when jobs burn the names off our applications

Not when crack blocks are our stimulus package

Not when American flags stretch our necks to pledging

Not when our children are sold, our mother’s confiscated and our backs stripped for a name

Ahmaud Aubrey

Say his name