A poem a day for 2013 - day 63 - Untitled for Marco and the McMillian family

I drive home 
With the sweetest love poems 
In my head
The first line is always the hardest
For me
It has to be just right
You know

It's gone now though
That just right first line
The thought of love
And my hush name held right 
On his tongue

Marco McMillian
Black man
Mayoral candidate
Thirty-three years old
Clarksdale, Mississippi
Dragged
Set on fire
Dead

And now I cannot scribe 
Some love poem
About kisses on my neck
About rain on my head

I keep reading 
And looking for the whys
The how comes hidden behind 
Police facts and coroners statement

I keep reading 
Knowing I get so sucked in 
I can't scrape two prayers together
To get me off this couch
Staring at his smile
His eyes
His skin like black men I know

This is the news
This is the world

I keep kissing my son
These nasty salt kisses
Kissing him for Emmit
For Trayvon
For Marco

My son deserves his own kisses
For his own alive self
But I am every black young man's mama
Every one

Mississippi God damn