african american family

Research on Juneteenth,
and I am born
to disquiet by lynchings
from my shelter of privilege,
to find history leveled
under voices once muted,
now megaphoned
from Minneapolis to Berlin.

I am disquieted
by a father’s breaths,
taken under knee
and divisible
by the wrong room
where Breonna was shot.

Disquiet reboots
the me that I was.

I have chosen to be

a speaker in tongues
for free verse
aloud with alarm
when lynchings
are deemed suicides.

No more.

I will resonate

with the pleading
of a father’s breaths,
taken under knee
and divisible
by the wrong room
where Breonna was shot.

No more.

I will resonate

with the thunder
that peals from white pages
when a jogger
is run down
and the sheriff knows.

No more.

I will resonate

from the still of the ground
fertile with silence.

I will bloom
to the struggle
and beauty of shouting,
“Black…