A Full 40oz Beer is Tossed From a Passing Car and Lands at My Feet
by Roger Bonair-Agard

and its roar is deafening — glass
and beer everywhere — night
and an incredible sadness
and Trayvon Martin is still
on everyone’s lips tonight
and I’m wearing a dark blue hoodie
and the people in the car can’t know
what color I am or even
that I’m there — pushing
as I am on my bicycle
and I don’t know many days
what the logarithms of rage
and so many people given
so much permission
to hate

a man says call me
a racist but I couldn’t care
as much about the character
because they made her black
which means

America
has given him a history — too
and an unyielding right to count
my body expendable

When did I become less
mournable?

Who mounted me such a mule —
human whose death is unremarkable
and for whom no one waits
at home as I pedal on through
the cloakish night which everyone knows
now after Sanford, Florida
adjudicates nothing in favor
of black bodies — enter lynch
cliche here — which is to say
it is possible for my death
by mob to be so unremarkable
as to not be shocking
or newsworthy — my mother
my woman should learn
expect even to veil themselves
in black lace shame
on them for even wanting me
to star in my own life — to return
home triumphant and drunk
with my God-given right
in the darkness and the streets
and this is what I pray
to sometimes — what is God-
given
what I know
is my burden tonight — this
Palm Sunday as I come
celebrated into the Calvary
of my own personal black history
expecting what the Father has laid
out for me — sure death by mob
who hurls invective and missile
who say black can’t possible
be rooted for – who will deny
who will say their hands
were tied — who gets paid
for my death everyday
who knowing me already
convicted touches the hem
of my garment says nothing
and is made whole.