Mary Grace Dembeck Poet Sestina

As I Live and Breathe

AS I LIVE AND BREATHE
by

Mary Grace Dembeck


As I live and breathe!

I turn on my TV, and I cannot

Believe what I watch:

A white police officer with his knee

Pressed on a black man's neck.

While the black man cries a plea.


And what's the black man's plea?

Simply: “I can't breathe!”

While, on his neck

The officer will not, cannot

Remove his knee

It gets so hard to watch!


And yet, I do watch,

Listen to the plea

As the officer's knee

Makes the black man so hard to breathe.

And he cannot

Move his tortured neck.


His poor, poor tortured neck.

Meanwhile 3 other cops just watch -

(How come they cannot,

Respond humanely to the black man's plea

Of “I can't breathe!”

While seeing the effects of that horrid knee?)


The cop, pressing his knee

Harder on the black man's neck,

Hears “I can't breathe!”

Cares not - continues to sullenly watch,

Shrugs off the gasping plea -

He doesn't care. I cannot.


Bear it anymore, yet I cannot

Take my eyes off that knee,

Close my ears to that plea

Watch that poor black man's neck

Collapse, and then I watch

The black man no longer breathe.


I turn off my TV, so that I cannot any longer see the black man's neck

Under the cop's knee, can no longer watch -

Nor hear the plea of “I can't breathe!”

♡Like0

Share Poem

---

Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.

Please Login to post a comment

Silent One May 31, 2020 at 6:19 AM Brilliant poetry..

Maureen McGreavy Pigeon Tart May 30, 2020 at 8:50 PM I couldn't even watch it, catching only a glimpse and it still hasn't left me. Haunted by every little clip of police brutality I have already seen. I hope you don't still see it, understanding the need to write it. ~mo