John Bazemore/AP

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John Bazemore/AP

People react during a rally to protest the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Ga.

The 25-year-old black man was shot and killed by two white men while he was out for a jog in February in Glynn County, Ga.

I am sorry that all I can do is write this poem

I am sorry that your life has become a metaphor:

a house being built, down the road,

He liked to mark its progress,

dream of building one himself,

Eyes shine through windows,

Like raccoons in the woods at night,

Their faces twisted, pink, and hot,

He knows these trees, and their strange fruit,

Of thee I sing.

after hatred's song is spilled

out into the streets

and across soft green lawns

it cannot be unsung

After bullet leaves chamber

it cannot be recalled

My heart rages for another mother's loss of her son

for the blindness

for the cover up

for the tears not enough to wet the graves

of so many lost for the sake of insanity:

a black babysitter caring for white children

a black professor opening his own front door

a young black woman sleeping in her own college lounge

a black teen knocking on a door to ask directions

his first words: Don't Be Afraid

a black boy jogging in the morning

There is an essential difference between running

and running for your life.

They are young men

simply going about their lives

Never, ever again, should a dream be deferred,

should a parent have to explain

Jim Crow still lives in the hearts and minds

of white men,

should a young man look over his shoulder

at a gun and run only to lose this race.

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