God is inhaling tear gas
on the street where mothers kneel,
with milk and citrus-soaked bandanas
and trembling palms raised.
God limps in the chaos, bruised
chest from rubber bullets, spattered in pepper spray,
swaddled in the wail of a mother crying for her stolen son.
God remembers why She fled to Egypt once.
She is dragged by armor-clad hands on a crumbling wall,
the same God who once wrote in dust now weeps
where smoke makes breath a prayer.
God is not clean tonight. He is not robed
in gold or praised, Her face smeared
with grief and ash and rage. God destroys property.
She turns tables, burns fig trees and cop cars,
proclaims presence in the face of power. She cries out
where bodies are broken, where knees are pressed
into the neck of justice, and truth is dragged away.
God is arrested. God is kidnapped, spends three days
in a basement with thirty other men, one rusted toilet
and iron bars like ribs. God is trafficked.
God is banished from a land He grew, a land She owned.
iyree jarrett works as a diversity, equity, and inclusion organizer at a nonprofit in Los Angeles.
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