Old Man Sun God by Jessica Mookherjee

At noon they burn, in their light blue tracksuits and slogans,

The law is the law and the law is light; They chant

near where the kid was shot dead, left on the road for hours –

while his mother screamed.

They tell the cameras, Someone’s got to stand for the police –

buy wristbands – outside the police-station,  All Lives Matter –

a million dollars raised for the cop’s retirement fund.

they huddle from darkness; as the black man

in his white t-shirt, that says peace and hope, walks towards them.

Oh here goes, one mutters, reaching for his Beemiller handgun.

 

At noon, ancestor father-sun, creator of the Osage-Sioux,

clicks his teeth and sits outside his burger-joint; smoking pipe,

he laughs, remembers how there was nothing he could do

to help his tribe. Those forced relocations to Kansas

dustbowls in the eighteen hundreds. He lost his power.

He is nothing but stories now, that’s guns for you. . . he spits,

those jostled marches through the prairies,

he never understood how so few white men took it all away from them,

we kept open though the riots and protests…he tells Fox News.

 

At noon that old blasting Missouri sun-god sucks salt from skins;

sees only blisters. Nods at white men’s god

with his necessary evil, knew dark secrets.

They knew yoking men was wrong while praying to Jesus.

They made up reasons as they went along.

He watches that black guy – who long ago was Yoruba

and prayed to Olurun-Who-Is-The-Sky,

lord of bones, brains, clouds and light, everything white.

No wonder it was so easy to put the collar on

so tight.