gabriel

or this idea of the police

beating a man to death

the need to ask the color of his skin

of the sky

blood raining down from it

onto the houses and the cars
and the children

the indians marched to the desert

then slaughtered

the pregnant women

locked in cages

everything done in the name of freedom

and then the churches set on fire
and then the names of the
people trapped inside

their screams lost beneath

the roar of progress

their bones

picked out of the ashes

the way we plant them and

wait for a
different beast to grow