For Annette Garcia
by Alison Roh Park

In the end under their dark starched uniforms
shiny buttons polished leather and metal gleam
they’re all pale men with wolf eyes
and light hair that disappears in sunlight
who show up on your front lawn after a call-in
domestic disturbance they don’t know what to expect
and one minute you are alive maybe disoriented
maybe emotional maybe someone has broke open your heart

maybe you are trying to figure out how a woman of color
raises three children in this country how a mother
leads a revolution how to pay the bills etc etc
and the next minute your babies are orphaned
and there is no media parade no cell phone video on Fox News
only a press release that took 10 days to reach the other coast
only gun shot residue settling in the air
a kitchen knife dropped out of your hand and into the grass
a mother an ancestor a sister a child pulling on hair
taking great gulping breaths of air trying to comprehend
what just happened what glitch in the universe
what tragedy.

Annette, did you have a chance
before they shot you in the back
or did you think you were walking away
from danger/doing the right thing.
We know about brutality
about sirens breaking black night
about mobile units and eyes in the sky
We know they are quick and hasty
finger itching mind blank trigger ready hand poised
We should know better but it is never not a surprise
never really expected never anticipated.

I saw Oscar Grant face down under the sun
in the last moments of his life pixelated and grainy
a breaking news marquee across the bottom of the screen
I imagined the concrete was hot burning his face
I watched the pigs go completely mad.
Three weeks later there is no fanfare no national salute no mass emails
for you sister I read words black on white in HTML in an email forward
from days and days ago and I feel my womb flex chest tighten
I feel the injustice in my bones
I feel the wrong in the world.

Hermana que te vaya bien.

*For Annette Garcia, Brown Beret mother of 3 murdered by Riverside Sheriffs on 1/23/09

Alison Roh Park is a poet and writer who lives in Queens, New York.