Martin Lee Anderson

by Kat Ricker
 

January 6, 2006
It was a private hour.
One unacceptable black boy,
an irritant on your skin
you scratched
‘til blood rose in its place.
It seemed so safe,
taking care of business.
One young voice silenced
at the circle of understanding.
No sass, no looks, no memory, no future.

Then a videotape
flared up like a phantom,
your secret hour looping, never ceasing,
never paling into the shadow of the past.
He won’t go down.

Each blow, each collapse, each prop
onto the human crucifix.
The wrist, the arm. Tighter. Harder.
Blow after blow after blow.
White coat checks for life.
Grown fists pound out the last soggy light.
The eyes of the world are watching now.
Justice itself rising out of the grave
to level its jet eyes at you.
He won’t go down.

Historians are standing by.
Coroners, legislators, the law
snapped awake and stuck staring,
politicians choking at the camera,
money waiting to change hands,
keys hanging ready to fast cars
and iron doors.

But the mothers, and the fathers,
the poets, the imprisoned,
the scrubbing workers,
soldiers, lovers, homeboys,
the young already taut and trapped,
they watch your private hour.

Every person you’ve known
or brushed against,
kissed or sneered,
and those who might never have known your names…
They see for themselves.
And they judge.

He won’t go down.
And it cannot be undone.