The Phone Call

She thinks,

I wonder if her knew

before he left.

I mean,

did he have any idea

before he left the house

that day.

Did he know

that he would murder

a mother’s soul,

an unknowing mother

who always knew?

With that one phone call

two people ceased breathing.

“Ma’am I have some very bad news.”

A hashtag.

A headline.

That’s what my son

had become, she thinks.

Even though

I raised him to

be a man.

Who decided the best

way

to let a mother know

her only son has died

was a phone call?

Did They not know

that a mother prepares,

especially a black mother,

for that call to come

one day?

From the day she holds

her baby boy

in her arms–

how she longs

to hold him in her arms–

forever.

And now this detached voice

on the phone,

delivers words like a hail of bullets

with no escape.

Maybe if she refuses to speak,

refuses to hear

the words that have been

a throng of silent whispers

echoing in her head

since the day he was born,

maybe then

the pain now coursing through

her heart will

go away.

She can refuse to hang up;

she will hold the receiver

with a grip that refuses to

let go,

like she couldn’t do

her brown skin,

brown-eyed son.

Holding this voice hostage,

refusing to accept

the barrage of bullets

to her soul, she

wonders if her son

already knew.

She wonders

Did she say ‘I love you’

enough?

Did she teach him

how to die gracefully?

She taught him to read

taught him the ABCs

They struggled through

lessons he needed,

stuff he’d need

for the rest of his life like

how to tie his shoes.

And struggled through

math too.

But did she teach him

how to see

his own blood

pour from his body

but not to panic

not to react

just to die gracefully

like the man

he’d never be?

The thought pricks her memory

and she picks up the burden,

shoulders grief ensconced in

remembering.

She forgot to remind him

that the air of mystery

surrounding him

could be

mis—taken for

a weapon and

the knee jerk

reaction

of some racist

neighborhood watchman or

overzealous policeman

who wears his manhood

on his sleeve

could kill him.

She thinks,

I didn’t warn him

that the cowardly actions

of some other “man”

could become the knife blade

of reality

to remind them both–

if the dead can remember–

They have always hated him.

But she,

she has always

loved him

because

how could she not?

Peace & Love,

Rosalind