White Lie Poem by Sarah McCauley

Black boy enters a grocery store
(Snakes his arm around white woman's waist)OR
Extends it to accept the peace of gum
(he uses his mouth to carve a sore in her ear)OR
Says thank you
(He whistles that she has a body like air that he wants to see himself surrounded by her scent)OR
Whispers that he likes the - - -
That is sweet like a magnolia leaf
He can understand why the darkest berries choose to grow here

Black boys weapon or is weaponized

PAGE: In 1955, Carolyn Bryant justified Emmett Till's death by claiming harassment
60 years later, His bones still lay in a casket, His mother's body has been showered of dirt
60 years later, Carolyn Bryant confesses to being a lair
As if we didn't already know
Her image is just as pretty as before
As she painted her nails with Emmett's blood
She felt her tongue heavy enough to pull a black boy out of the - -

Carolyn Bryant knows innocence by the sound of the neck snapping
Only knows accountability as distance cousin
She only cares to take her image
The truth will grant her a clear conscience
Only missed getting away with murder, well she came back for clemecy in return for her courage to confess
It is too late
Catolyn Bryant murdered Emmett Till
Or Clarence Norris
Or my brother
They all get the same description in our police report
Carolyn Bryant should speak our sins out of existence
Thinks she erased the whistle on her around the world
White women are the only ones who can be murders and still faultless
White women at the age of 21 is innocence
White woman at age of 85 is fragile
But black man is always broken at her touch
Black man yesterday was shattered by her scream
Black man today is shred to pieces at the sight of her
Because who will live to rebuke her
She walks amongst us a frail
Who has crushed -beneath her feet and a cane for support
Carolyn Bryant is alive and well
So her clutching her purse next to a black man, she is the elderly woman you just gave your seat to on the bus
She is a Dorothy or Eleanor or Madaline
But never murderer
White women
Knows how to make herself righteous
Ain't that like a white women, to point a finger with blood on her hands
To put a child in a casket and still be seen as victim
To clear her conscience after six decades for her white God's redemption
Ain't that a white woman to hide behind a white man and call us the shadow
To give her husband my head as d- -
Ain't that like a white woman, to think herself delicate as a flower while still being a thorn in my side
To think my tombstone can accept an apology
To put a black man to sleep and cry as his wake
Ain't that like a white lie?
Harmless? And trivial?
As honest, as a homicide?