Calling Mom: A Poem about Police Violence
*This poem was written by Morgain in July 2016, after the murders of Philado Castile and Alton Sterling. Black Lives Matter. Say Her Name. Resist.
Two more black men
Were executed by police
And I want to call my mother
I want to lean into her voice as she says
“I understand, baby.”
I want to know my mother
Understands
I know she worries
Know she finds ways
To tell herself that I am okay
But sometimes
I need her to be as shook as I am
What does it mean to be thankful
You are your mother’s only black child?
To rejoice in the safety
of your brother’s white skin?
Tonight, I am broken
So I find small spaces in which to laugh
And I read
and I listen
I think of being a child
And looking into my mother's eyes
How her irises
look like sunflowers
And I wonder
If that’s why I love sunflowers
I have my mother’s smile
America
Has never seen our similarities
I wish my mother knew
She needed to call me
Wish she knew
The way I’ve mastered the art
Of sobbing silently in public
With no other black face
To tell me we were going to survive
Another day
Does she know this feeling?
I know she understands oceans
between mother and daughter
I know she has swum as hard as she can
Even if her waves sometimes
Pushed me back
Or made me feel like I’m drowning
How often
Does she set her book on her nightstand
Lean back and ask herself
If she raised me to be strong enough?
Does she know
strength has nothing to do with it?
Does she wish it for me anyway?
I want to cry on the phone with my mother
Want to know she feels this broken world
The same way I do
I do not wish this fear of death upon her
But when she tells me that if I have children
She hopes they’re boys
I wonder if she would understand what I meant
When I say I don’t want a child
I can’t keep safe
That I think of marrying myself white
To make sure my son isn't too dark
maybe even pass
Tell him to not acknowledge me on the street
To not give himself away
like sons after slavery.
I wonder
As the news of more bodies
Rolls across the TV screen
Does she ever wish I were white?
Momma,
I no longer wish I were white
But tonight there is no comfort in this skin
Is a mother’s love enough
To comfort this skin?
When we both know
There is no saving me from it?