Another name is said
Another child dead
Oh, Quanice Hayes,
You should have lived
Many thousand more days

Not much is known
But little need be known
You were a teen
Wearing a hoodie
While black
And died
Barely a mile away
From me in my home
Readying my kids for school
And I went on my day
Not knowing
How close
How far
Your light would have shed
If your star
Had been allowed a life, fully lived.

*****

I wrote this poem on February 13th, after reading the news of Quanice’s death at the hands of police here in my city. Whatever happened, I truly believe that our system of policing does not help or support a feeling of peace in communities.

Whatever your thoughts are, please take a moment, and leave a kind word for a grieving family, and if you can, donate to his relief fund. Perhaps we will know the truth soon, but the only truth we know now is that a family lost a son, a brother, a cousin, a friend – a family lost all the things that could have been.