a poem in which we shoot back

 a cop wanders
 onto my porch
 lost after an accident
 looking for directions he knocks
 someone shoots him in the face
 before asking who’s there
 his body full of double barrel
 blasted falls sloppy on the steps
 a sheriff calls me in a frenzy
 someone is trying to break into
 his home. sheriff warns that he
 is carrying, legally. i arrive minutes later
 someone shoots the sheriff twice in the torso
 then demands he drop the weapon
 
 an officer speeds past me on the highway
 i catch him at the next light after the exit
 someone drags him out of the passenger 
 side window wraps a strong arm around 
 his throat exasperated he cries i can’t - 
 
 a captain is shopping in target in the toy section 
 no one calls me but i show up ready 
 sneak up behind the captain and someone
 slides a taser under the left side of his jaw
 he grabs for relief but the current don’t let go
 until he does and he lays there while
 the rest of us go on about our business
 
 a sergeant or a pig or a squad of police
 congregate on the suspicious side of a park
 i pull up and empty three magazines into every 
 uniform in sight before commanding stillness 
 over their lifeless lumped bodies
 
 i love my people. 
 i protect and serve my people.
 i’ll die to neutralize any threat to my people.
 i’m a good soldier. i’m a tired militant. 
 i’m an angry poet. i’m a fed up nigga. 
 i’m an angry nigga fed up with poems.
 i been tired before so i must be dead by now.
 i been sick so i must be immune by now. 
 what’s black life in a murder machine?