"The News She Does Not Give Him--
Everyone Is Killing Us" For Maurice Stallard and Vickie Lee
Jones, shot in a Jeffersontown Kroger, Louisville, Kentucky.
"The gunman walks through the parking lot,
casually, like he's picking up Kool-Aid and bread.
The gunman walks casually like your work pal
who brings his lunch to the park and enjoys
the sun on his shoulders, and enjoys coffee made white
with milk.
The gunman moves and moves like he is not a stranger at all,
not in this land.
He moves like he does not own his body,
but he owns the land that his body walks on.
He is not blood and muscle, but he
is an idea, an idea about your blood
and your muscle and your body.
The gunman must have someone who loves
him, who takes his gun from him some days and weeps.
He says, 'Whites don't shoot whites,' to the other gunman
hunched by the car.
Holding a revolver so casually, he
keeps it casually in the glove compartment for safety.
The gunman doesn't shoot the gunman.
The gunless get gunned down casually.
White sneakers in the parking lot, a woman's white sneakers
she puts on before going for Kool-Aid and bread.
And she walks casually on her white sneakers
until white falls all over her.
A white-hot shock of white so casually comes."