Sometimes I Feel Like All Indians
For Kelly Morgan
ever do is die
Her brother was thrown out the window
by Black men he was drinking with
His cousin was stabbed near the store
She got shot
Nobody knows where he ended up
She hasn’t heard from her brother in 17 years
He killed himself when his wife left
Her son was hit by a car of drunk whites
Her uncle went off a cliff in the dark
Her grandmother died in the hospital
because they gave her the wrong medicine
Her baby was born addicted & died
My brother died as a baby
Her mother died of an overdose
She doesn’t know how her mother died
but no one has seen her for a long time
She was put in foster care because her parents died in a car wreck
I close my eyes & keep praying
sometimes there’s nothing to do
but brush back the tears
& keep on folding the laundry