This Burden/This Strength (for Ahmaud)
by Tiffany Nicole Fletcher

1.
My sisters and I bear a strange burden:
we anticipate, we push back this ghost of fear,
we take in the story of the latest one and we steel ourselves—
we manage the threat of a silent war.
Even those who don’t believe find themselves offering supplication
to the Most High
to cover their sons and brothers fathers and uncles—
cover my grandfather and husband, they pray.
That they would not be hunted down like dogs and killed,
that they would not end up martyrs because of the fears of small men.

This soil runs red.
Truth: the canyon-sized crack in the fabric of this country’s soul,
and that our beloveds fall into it:
shot while sleeping
shot while sitting in the car
shot while walking home
shot while running
shot while standing
shot because
shot because
shot because   black
shot because of something they could not change or erase
shot because it’s accepted to spill this blood and not that blood.

2.
When men no longer believe in the spiritual realm and they are obsessed with consumption and materialism and technology and all of their progress has them thinking that they are in control of everything,
          they forget
                 that there is a spiritual realm
                      where everything is accounted for.

And this is why the mothers of the lost ones still pray.

When the courts forget justice the mothers of the lost ones walk away from the courthouse not broken but calling—
on Allah on the Christ on the ancestors the Holy Spirit on God on God on God:
fight this battle/let his life not have been in vain

3.
To be black in America is to live in a forever pandemic.
This breath might be taken at any time
there is no hoarding no mask no preparation to make it go away
there is no sound guidance no CDC for the threats against being black
there is no vaccine, there is no end in sight.
The enemy can’t be touched or seen – a curious deadly brokenness,
an evil that has taken over the soul and works itself through a body
to a pistol a rifle a rope
a chokehold   a knee pressed firmly enough,
sanctioned by history by law by numbers by the power framework.

4.
And yet:
we are still here.
There is a spiritual realm and the ancestors are speaking
their strength is still speaking, for
we are still here.
We use our music our words our rhythm even our blues we use the soul in our food
and we feed ourselves,
we sustain ourselves,
and even others become blessed.
We are still working the land and
picking the crop and setting the table
and feeding the babies
and carrying the heavy load.
Give us little
and we will multiply it
and even those who have tried to destroy us
will end up fed.

who do you call when the police—

In memory of Ahmaud Arbery 1994 – 2020