We are Assata

Quincy Scott Jones

 

We are braces and birthdays

weekend barbeques

commuter traffic

and job interviews

 

beauty salon barber shops

the doorbell on a first date

healthcare homeless vets

rising murder rate

 

We are “Killer Wanted”

We are post no bail

come home honey

go directly to jail

 

We are warning lynchings

and church fire bombs

charred black child

cross in her palm

 

We are eating at the counter

We are staying in our seat

cracks in our head

burns on our feet

 

from street protest and bus boycotts

while grandma in the kitchen don’t you stir no pot

and grandpa in his bottle it’s all for not

still we march arms in a lock

 

or hands on the car hood stopped by law

frisking our skins with a delicate claw

like master on the selling block bearing us all

auctioning out our womb selling off our balls

 

We are history

economy nickel and dime

We are the blackness of gravity

and the burden of time

 

We are animals

animus spirit and soul

We are the fossil fuels

that make things go

 

the strike that slow the garden hoe

the quiet cry no means no

 

We are the crooked beaker the combative preacher

smart street sweeper and the secret teacher

 

the car that roll on the investigation go on

the Medgars the Emmetts, the Seans and Trayvons

 

We are Assata Shakur

We are America too

and if you’re reading this

we are you

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Quincy Scott Jones’ work has appeared in such anthologies as Heroics: Strange Tales of Absurd Superheroes, From Where We Sit: Black Writers Write Black Youth and Let Loose on the World: Celebrating Amiri Baraka at 75. With Nina Sharma he co-created the Nor’easter Exchange:  a multicultural, multi-city reading series.   His first book, The T-Bone Series, was published by Whirlwind Press in 2009.