Sonnet №77 — for my Black Brothers

Protest sonnet number 9

I have been on a veritable writing binge; prose — essays and blog posts and the odd magazine website piece, and poetry — perhaps a dozen new sonnets in the last two weeks. Wherever this energy comes from, you have to write while the pen is hot, eh? That said, I wrote this last August, after the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, WI — On being an ally, and the burden of color.

Sonnet №77 — for my Black Brothers -protest poem #9

I pick up heavy things and put them down.

The weight room is a refuge from my fate.

A bulwark made from muscle is my crown.

I leave my burden there whence leave its gate.

I cannot imagine what a Black man sees.

He carries weighty burdens all his life.

A crushing load, it drives him to his knees,

and rips apart his innards, a gutting knife.

His every move is scrutinized on end.

He wears his hoodie up, he is a thug,

His very right to live, he must defend.

His “I Can’t Breathe!” met with a heartless shrug.

A white man, I can set my loads aside.

For my Black brothers, I can only cry.

— — August, 2020.