George Floyd

Did anyone sleep last night? Not sure. I didn't. I went to sleep with images of my beloved DC burning and kept thinking about how we've had so many years to end racism in this country - and we don't. We just keep trucking along and acting as if it will heal itself.

We don't consume a lot of news in our home via radio or TV, particularly when Helen and Connor are awake. But they have phones and computers and friends. Still, it took me a little off guard when I mentioned something to Ed and as I reached for the name, Helen filled in "Floyd". Although I knew Connor was an avid consumer of news, I didn't realize Helen was as well.

The juxtaposition of the two of them sleeping in the backyard last night with the dog where it's pretty quiet and safe with DC being torn apart a few miles away was unsettling. And while I do seek to make my children feel safe, particularly in this time when there is not enough known about coronavirus / COVID-19,  maybe they feel a little too comfortable?

I WOULD SWING

by Kelly Corrigan

If you took my husband away from me

Just because, say, he had blue eyes

Or a hairline you found objectionable

Or maybe because you didn’t like the cyst

that waxes and wanes

On his back

I would not make a poster

Or write an op ed

I would buy a sledge hammer

I would swing it into plate glass

Until I could make you feel

As endangered and disposable

As I felt.

I would need you,

As all people do,

To feel how I felt.

I would need to see you sit up,

Pull yourself out of a dream

Into a worse reality,

Saying

Will my neck be broken next?

Will my true love be made still

Under the knee

Of a righteous man

Who has all the rights I don’t

And knows it?

If you screamed into your iPhone

That my husband and his heritage

As a European-American

was assaulting you

By suggesting your dog

Needed a leash in the park

That was all of ours

I would not be polite in my response

I would not find a lawyer

And wait patiently for an “authority”

To maybe side with me.

Physical madness, if you ask me,

Is the most natural and understandable reaction.

Unproductive, sure.

Counter productive, yes of course,

But natural and understandable.

I know this in my body and your body knows it too.

Put your blue eyed husband

Under the knee of a public “servant”

for nine minutes

and when his heart stops forever

you tell me if you reach for a magic marker,

your laptop

or a sledge hammer