Bouncing over the city skyline, he shambled
Into Cup Foods with a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill
To buy a pack of cancer sticks.
He didn't deserve to die for it.

The ink was smeared on the twenty, made from
A bleached-out one-dollar bill, on a cheap printer
In the back of a muddy mini-van,
He never even saw.

He was Black in South Minneapolis,
A hipster saint with a habit on his back.
He didn't deserve to die for it.

Face down in the gutter, hands cuffed
Behind him, fighting to breathe,
Flashing back to his varsity coach and Houston youth,

The last thing he knew was the knee
Of Racism on his neck. Until he
Died from it.

C. W. Mortell was startled into literary life early by Emily Dickinson and Ezra Pound. He was shaped by The UW-Madison English faculty and editing The Daily Cardinal. He has appeared in Isthmus, The Pump House, Mark My Words, Zines, EtAl. He has read at The Root Note, Pearl Street Books, ArtHouse Showcase, and The Listening Room.