You have your mother’s anxious tender heart
and couldn’t sleep the other night having heard
how another child felt as shots rang loudly
through the corridors of his school.
  
Now I, your mother, cannot rest
since learning how a child only 15 years of age
brought a stolen gun and ammo to his school,
a private show-and-tell.
We’ve walked past that school,
just around the corner and a block away
from where you sat today
in your “safe” suburban classroom.
  
Tomorrow I will hug and wish you a good day,
my dear little boy, and watch you walk away,
walk into your school and I will pray;
to gods not there I’ll ask,
that you return to me, still safe,
sharing silly anecdotes of your class…
May you stay in sweet oblivion
to the threats that weigh so heavy on
your mother’s tender anxious heart.

…

Three and a half years gone by
Now he’s in junior high
Several times this year his friends
Held memory of her life’s end—
she caught cross-fire in the local mall
casualty of a high-school brawl
with a gun

Now my boy & I consider streets
Packed with protestors marching to beats
demanding mercy & release
for brown folks who at their posts
of labor unbearable to most
were stolen from family & home.
In anger we bemoan
that meddling retaliation of the “king”,
“Bring the National guard, bring the Marines!
We’ll teach these rioters things
make them turn & run
from the shadow of our guns.”

My dear growing boy,
It brings me no joy
to watch the growing mess
of heartlessness & regress
that we adults now
will pass on, but I hope somehow
your tender caring heart will prevail
and that your generation might hail
a better tomorrow.

Love,
Mom