A poem a day for 2013 - day 9 - Fear factor

I don't know the solution
I don't
As if it could be as simple as just that
Don't know all the facts
Statistics on how many
Crips to cops or
Bloods to babies
Blacks or whites
Mexicans or Samoans 
I have stopped keeping track
One was too many
I don't know how many guns out there
Or which are most deadly
What do I know from guns anyway
.22
.44
I was never good at math
I am a poet
A mother
I paint fire acrylic murals of 
Big head gapped toothed boys with 
Pants pulled up and arms too long
Wrap round the sun and back to Mama for biscuits and Superman stickers
Too tall knock kneed girls with too many pig tails and pink barrettes
Hello Kitty elbow bandages and lipgloss poppin'
Practicing cheers ain't got nothing to do with sports
And these babies
These babies I paint and
Write stories about
Keep disappearing 
Keep getting killed and kidnapped
And somebody sees something
Somebody always sees something
It is getting harder and harder to find smiling 
Fathers to take pictures of 
I can't open my news feed without
Seeing a girl barely thirteen
A boy just turned twenty
Shot
Killed 
Gone
North Carolina
Washington, D.C.
Jersey
Philly
Compton
Long Beach
Inglewood
Watts
There has to be somewhere we are safe
This is not God's plan
It's not
What good are these words
What good are pictures and stories
So what about art and ponies
Rainbows and roller coasters
When no one wants to ride
When there is always a funeral to attend
Posters to spread 
About missing
About murder
Last words and 
I should have held him longer
Kissed her forehead
Missing posters are for cameras and handbags
Not boys and babies
Not girls and teens and maybe
Maybe stricter gun laws will work 
And maybe they won't
Perhaps it's all bigger than race and the devil
I don't have any of the answers 
I'm just a poet
A mother
Holding my son too tight
Every chance I can