For George Floyd

They knelt on the fruit
until it bled a nightmarish jazz
into the concrete
like Ornette Coleman’s dying cat
then used the pulp
to line the stripes and the juice
to spray the stars and wrapped
the poor in it ‘til they couldn’t breathe
suffocating at half mast
cocooned in medicine they could not afford
skewered by the needles they would never see
and told those watching it was the Mexicans
and told them it was the blacks
and told them it was the Chinese
and told them it was the whites
just some of them the ones that paint
and have Pintrest accounts and
smoke better weed and when
they couldn’t see them
they believed them
and then they wrapped that flag tight
even tighter this time
while the invisible screamed
“I can’t breathe!” inside
and w/ the strength of a million
cleanly pleated god fearing knees
they knelt on the fruit again

© 2020 Lee Kitzis