Mourning Chicago

I left the radio on too long,

and so she hears the morning news,

my five-year-old licking peanut butter off toast,

stops, holds it in midair, and asks, Cops shot two kids?

Will they shoot me? And I know how to answer but I don't know

how to answer. I know

that because she is white and I am

white and her dad is white, even our Toyota

is white and our dog a beer-shine blonde, the cops

will not shoot her. And I am relieved and sickened by my relief,

and so I say, I left the radio

on too long, but that is wrong, and so

I say that cops are people who make mistakes,

but I know it's not just the cops, but we who leave

the neighborhoods, the schools, the YMCAs, we who leave

the cops alone

to tend to what everyone wants

to pretend doesn't exist, be it poverty, paranoia,

the pointlessness of trying to improve when—Her dad

interrupts, says, Cops help us. I shake my head, say, we cannot

lie, although I lie

all the time, and he shakes

his head, suggesting she's young

enough for this lie, and I think how differently parents

across our United States hold these conversations in the kitchen,

everyone chewing on a different

snap, crackle, pop as they discuss what

to do when approached by a cop. And it's not just

because we're white, but also that we have enough money

to keep the tags up, the brake lights on, the accent with no "from."

My mom taught me

to say, Sorry Officer, I'm just

running late to Grandma's house, as if life

is a woodsy trek sometimes interrupted by a furry

wolf whose teeth can be appeased by a smile and a please.

I remove the fairytale

for my daughter, say they are

another "dispenser of violence in this world,"

and my husband says, Stop, and I say, I will when

it stops; he says it'll never stop, so we fumble for the volume

as the radio mumbles,

our daughter now equally confused

by the two: Why they killed kids and why they

will not kill her, so she asks again, Why won't they shoot me?

as the radio keeps up its monotone morning prattle to go down

with coffee and cream, its morning reporting: Chicago, Chicago, Chicago.

Source: Code (Black Lawrence, 2020)