Joseph Ross: What Can Be Said

What Can Be Said

for M. T.

What can be said

of the white cop

who spat on my Black

student in the 2am

silence beside Hwy 270?

Did the vigilant oaks

slip steel into your

blood? Did you think

the stars could not see

in the dark? Did you

imagine darkness has

no conscience, would

not speak up?

And what of my student,

this young man

lying on the ground

behind a car, trembling

amid the 2am choir of 

seizure and panic?

That his shivering

asthma scared you so

much you couldn’t breathe?

Bitch the only word

to dance off your tongue?

Spit the only language

you could speak?

Joseph Ross is the author of two books of poetry: Gospel of Dust (2013) and Meeting Bone Man (2012). He teaches English and Creative Writing at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. and writes regularly at Joseph Ross.net