Every year there are

Untold more of us

An Ahmaud Arbery, Botham Jean,

Eric Garner, Tamir Rice or me

Then a loud clamor

Our broken faces on TV

We ask so many questions

That no one’s forced to answer

With sympathy’s short half-life

Most just wait for the noise to stop

So the questions

Can disappear once again

Just like us

In our lives

And our deaths

© Gayle Force Press 2020

A poem by Franklin Oliver