O.J.’S TRIAL & AFTER

Trouble beats time,
fragile as a wren
draws wind and epithets.
What verdict were we after
no jury can give us?
A certainty of guilt?
Scapegoat?
The chance to inflict pain?
An atonement,
like the million-man march?

It may be too late for time’s
comfortable judgments,
all a-ache and brittle-broke.
Through raw eyes we again see
fish caught in a net,
black and white;
the shadows strain,
the unmothered children
perpetuated by white spite.

Time lets go of even this
and every one of us.
The perished perish afresh,
slapping water against the hips.
Heat sifts, water dips and drowns,
a promise, defaulted,
eager to collect.
Wounds heal and bleed:
the sun about to set
on an empire of hope.