The street was a plume of
Cigarette smoke and cell phone lights
Waiting for police brutality
As the man’s head bounced
Off the macadam and he screamed:
Help, I can’t breathe.
Speculations abounded from sidewalk to sidewalk,
Was he guilty, did he deserve it?
Is he faking? Look, he’s weaponized spit!
Evil’s banality spans the one-way street
A volley of pity and vindictive joy
Muting him, washing away
By a blue tide of boys seeking retribution
Pushing through.
They held up the gun over his head
Against his heart, tipping the scales.
The crowd, in applause or in anger
Swelled in number and noise,
For or against, brought together
By the chance to be featured
On outrage videos spanning the internet over
Right or left, the ambivalence of raw footage—
Those boys took him off
As the crowd turned upon itself,
Distracting it from what it gathered for,
A red flag waving in front of the bull.