At six years old, me and mine moved cross country,
all our worldly things tight packed in a Ford Contour.
Our black and white cat mewed gently beside me
as the Texan breeze blew through open windows.
I played Gameboy as the streetlights allowed,
not knowing fully why we fled. We odysseyed
upstream, a single craft in a fleet of others, making port
at whichever motel we could sneak a pet inside.
We went by freeway for fear of being the next mess
to litter country roads—to be bound and battered
in small town south. But the north is no stranger
to country roads or making messes, just attentive
to cleaning up postmortem. We couldn’t know
how snowbanks can obfuscate
brutality, how traditions spread
from sea to shining sea, how
histories can never be left behind.
_
At fifteen, I watched a cop shove a child
down concrete school steps, his body flailing
between impacts. His skull battered
to fragments. Crimson rivering
down a well-ironed shirt.
The child, beaten
into my memory, was bound
and ferried away. He was made an example, to every Black
kid with the gall to ask “Why?
What did I do, officer? Get your
hands off of me, officer. You’re
hurting me, officer. I can’t breathe,
officer.” A reminder,
some traditions spread
coast to coast. A reminder
they can never be unmade.
–
In the north, neighbors hide
behind niceties and dial 9-1-1
if one too many negroes occupy space.
If we ask too many questions or
carry on too loudly. Here they despise
confrontation, and call well-armed
militias to lynch on their behalf.
Here, Black kids learn
to watch over shoulders.
To look for red and blue lights,
because they know our nation’s colors
are synonymous with death.
They know some traditions are old as
shipping routes, that there is no port
or corner of the country
where the same rules don’t apply.
They know a legion is eager to take them,
that their headline is already penned.
How this nation aches to break them.
How this history is never left behind.
Poem: TY CHAPMAN is a Twin Cities–based puppeteer, poet, curator, and storyteller. His upcoming works include writing a children’s book through the Loft’s Mirrors and Windows program and creating a one-man shadow puppet and marionette show for Puppet Lab.
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