Thomas Locicero’s most recent poem to appear here was “Subway Stop C-19” (May 2020).

Black and White
(for the too many to name)
By Thomas Locicero

I never thought I’d hear those words again:
“I can’t breathe.” How terrible the resound!
A knee on a neck. The obvious outcome.
Hearing those words and their repercussions,
The reverberation, the witnesses,
The division to come—the peaceful protests
During a pandemic, of all things; the signs,
The chants, then the chance of violence, and then
The violence, the fires, the window breaking,
The looting, the Riot—again? No, still—
Same riot, different day—even Death would loose
Its grip, but not Hatred. It’s strange to say
That hatred holds on for dear life. Stranger still
Is that we speak of black and white in terms
Of color, yet neither one is one. Were they,
The white cop would be the darker of the two,
Not in terms of black and white but rather
In the biblical terms of darkness and light.