For Cyrus Carmack-Belton

Our children never get justice

There is no justice here—
not for our boys
not when whiteness wields self-defense
as a shield
against blackness;
not when dark skin is evidence of intent and proof of guilt in its rawest form;
not when trials are merely frugal entertainment and cheap distractions.
The photograph tells the story:
a young black body facedown on the ground,
his blood painting abstracts in concrete;
at the peak of his youth,
the sprout of a man
gunned down before his time.
Callous white men cheer a justice
as empty as a void in the universe,
and black folks
shriek and wail from the interior
into the vacuum.