Black Lives

When a man stepped out his childhood home, Planting a brave foot in the open world Not an age, not a generation, not a world ago, There breathed and burned in him hope Shared with mama's receding figure Frozen in prayer by the doorpost to his back That his way he would make through this mild wild That law and claw both make the world With flesh unmarred by scratch or patch. "You'll keep out of trouble if you behave yourself," she would advise. That, sure, was the wisdom of her world, Her old world now long gone, When the law was still a genuine ass, Not a chameleon in ass skin That turns deathly black when around blacks And pristine white when around whites. Black or white, all will rue the loss of that world When a man was safe if he behaved himself. Now he keeps out of trouble Only if he behaves himself, The police behave themselves, And court behaves itself.