My fingers crack and bleed 
in winter, but blood is nothing like this

deep red juice seeping under my nails 
as I slice cherries into a bowl of yogurt. 
         
Yesterday we marched. Today we mourn.
Yes, Renee Good was a poet. 

But her blood on the airbag was not
an elegy. Bullets, both tenor and vehicle.

Remember Audre Lorde’s truth: 
Your silence will not protect you.

Every time my knife breaks skin, I feel 
barriers thinning between flesh and force.