Poetry by Carla M. Cherry

           Dan Phiffer CC



Why I Did Not Watch the Derek Chauvin Trial
After “the voice of no” by Erica Hunt
​
Hope is a rain-slick stretch of highway.

No use in turning on CNN to hear eyewitnesses 
police chief
medical examiner 
confirm what I have always known
without looking at/listening to 
nine minutes and 29 seconds
of George calling for his mother 
the battle in his rib cage
over a 20-dollar bill.
Harriet’s face on the front 
would not have made a damn bit of difference.

Arthritis in my knees from kneeling in prayer
every time my son leaves the house at night.
Bursitis from lifting my arms in praise 
every time he comes home.

No use in exacerbating my hypertension
hearing the defense blame Floyd’s death on his hypertension.
Arrhythmia.
Opioid addiction.

It took Beulah Mae Donald six years to break the KKK 
after they lynched her son Michael in ‘81.
The defense tried to blame his death on drugs too.
 
It was no use.
They traded white hoods for blue uniforms and badges.

Daunte Wright is dead.
How many more police precincts must burn?

Next up is a trial where Kim Potter explains how after 26 years 
she could not differentiate between her Taser and her pistol.
President Biden is calling for Peace and Calm,
just like Daunte’s mother.
Black anger is understandable.
Looting and violence has no justification,
and H.R. 40 has been stalled for 30 years.
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 gave
Japanese Americans their reparations.
President Biden established a memorandum 
against anti-Asian attacks 

and the twenty-first century Slave Patrol carries on.

Voting for Jamaal Bowman
donations to Jon Osoff’s and Raphael Warnock’s campaigns
my signature on Color of Change and Move On petitions
designing and teaching culturally relevant curricula
will never be enough.

What else I can say that Sojourner did not proclaim in 1851?
That Ida B. Wells did not say in the Free Speech?
That the I Am a Man anti-lynching signs did not articulate?

Dr. King said only light can drive out darkness,
and James Earl Ray shot him before the fall of dusk.

Robert F. Williams and the Deacons of Defense are my historical heroes
and I hate myself 
for not going to gun ranges and stocking up at gun stores.
Teaching my POC to stalk rooftops and surveil the streets guerilla style.
For not carrying a machete 
making racist rogue cops beautiful, Mau Mau style.
The Spook Who Sat by the Door is just a book on my shelf.

I am not built for life on the run.
I do not want what they did to Fred Hampton to happen to me.
My brothers and sisters.

Mommy, call the police! He has got a gun!
I was 4, had seen Uncle Ralph put his piece 
on top of the bookcase before he sat on the sofa.
They explained he carried it as a C.O., but
that was no use.
I was afraid of that gentle giant for the rest of his life.

When I was 12, I picked up the phone 
to hear my mother gasping for air,
urging me to get my father 
after Uncle Don shot himself 
in his bedroom.

I asked a boyfriend if I could hold his .45 once.
It was heavy.
Cold.
My mother’s sobs echoed in my head. 
Envisioned Grandma mopping up brain matter and blood off the floor.

I waited until the Chauvin verdict came down
to turn on CNN.
Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

Will the blue wall of silence come tumbling down?

How many more years until I stop
hydroplaning on black tears?

Self-care, or else.
If they had not killed Malcolm, 
Uncle J.R. would never have shot heroin into his veins.

I will 
              work on this third master’s degree,
              my middle finger to Mommy’s high school counselor:
              Business administration is not open to Negroes.
              Write happy poems in between the angry ones.
              Make love.

If it was not too late, 
I would birth more babies.
Give them all African names meaning warrior.
Teach them reciprocated kindness in lieu of manners.


​

Carla M. Cherry is an English teacher and poet who is earning her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the City College of New York. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Anderbo, Eunoia Review, Dissident Voice, Random Sample Review, MemoryHouse Magazine, Bop Dead City, and Ariel Chart. Her latest book of poetry, Stardust and Skin, was published by iiPublishing, and several other titles are forthcoming. In her spare time, Carla dances at Chicago-style stepping sets.

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