Blackbird by Charlie Brice

 

A knee broke
the blackbird’s neck
but now knees contract
in contrition and
street curbs weep.

Broken, he flies over
400 years of stay put,
400 years of moneychangers
desecrating our country
with his people’s chains;
he flies over hate, shame, division,
across the demesne of white privilege,
to bring us day, sun, warmth—
change.

His midnight song is gone.
Like MLK he won’t
get there with us,
but he leads us
to the far-side
of freedom,
to the soul missing
from the cop’s shoe.

The eye of a needle is small.
George Floyd threads it for us all,
threads it still,
for some things
you can’t kill.