Essential Work
by Raymond Nat Turner

We’ll always need Race car drivers roaring
down streets where children chase balls; like
We’ll always need peaceful protesters pepper
sprayed like cockroaches; And
We’ll always need sleeping seven year-olds shot
while dreaming of dolls, sleepovers, tooth fairies;
We’ll always need children playing with toy guns
in parks executed before becoming “Hulk Hogans”

We’ll always need doors kicked in and our daughters
and sons slaughtered in wee hours—even if it is the
Wrong address…
We’ll always need elderly parents whacked for
Accidentally pressing emergency alerts; like
We’ll always need mentally ill loved ones massacred
in our homes…

We’ll always need men rushing pregnant wives to
Hospitals shot for speeding; And fathers of six
Hustling too hard chokehold lynched;
We’ll always need young women who drive and
smoke, stopped and suicided; And mothers wearing
masks wrong wrestled down in subway stations—as
their 4 year-olds watch…

We’ll always need wallets mistaken for guns—Glocks
for Tasers; fleeing Black men shot in their backs; And
bridegrooms butchered, night before their weddings…

We’ll always need Tasered hearts skanking
in Reggae rhythms; And broken broomsticks
rammed up mens’ rectums for fun…
We’ll always need bruised, bloodied, disfigured
Faces—eyeballs dangling from sockets;
We’ll always need drugs and guns planted—
Growing into cases, concertina wire, COVID-19…

We’ll always need right hooves raised Testi-lying
To judges and juries of peers on the need for knees
on necks—56 licks or 41 shots—Served to Protect
Poverty…

© 2020. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.