1. After the body falls back riddled with bullets do not expect it to respond to demands Lean into its irony—the dead Black body asked to defend its death and forgive 2. During autopsy the dead Black body unfurls its arms presses its pinched fingers against its wounds to extract taxpayers’ bullets The dead Black body does the work for you The public decides if the dead Black body has value The public pulls other dead Black bodies out of its hats convince themselves that they have solved the trick present their best guesses in search of applause from an audience of dead Black bodies 3. There is video that corrects police reports The public asks Do we have enough footage The view count increases exponentially The public searches for the sleight of hand Rewind Let us see again where the traffic stop becomes murder 4. The autopsy answers Homicide The public asks What is the dead Black body’s criminal history The public adds qualifiers adjusts the narrative reduces the dead Black body’s worth are confident in its threat Here is the sleight 5. {applause}
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For 10 weeks, we will feature one poem per week from Surveillance, the new chapbook available now from Writ Large Press. These poems by Ashaki M. Jackson explore police killings of Blacks captured on video and the public’s consumption of these videos. Previous poems: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7