He was a kid. His wife was pregnant, but
he was a kid. Just out of high school.
He looked like a kid. He was white.

Most of the people I know are either white
or indigenous or a mix of white
and indigenous or mostly white
but identify as indigenous or mostly
indigenous but identify as white,
and this poet laureate I know who
is mixed said that mixed indigenous
have the same killed-by-police rates
as indigenous who aren’t mixed.

I remember when the cops pulled me
over and I was moving, so my car was packed
to the hilt, where I made sure that the windows
weren’t blocked, but other than that every nook
and cranny was filled with everything I owned
in the world and it was a barren street so it was just
me and the cops and the sun and the day was hot
and it was noon so the sun was ready for a full
day of cooking us slowly and the cops asked if I had
any drugs in the car and I said no and they asked
if I had any drugs in the car and I said no and they
asked if I had any drugs in the car for a third time
and I said no and they told me to step out of the car
and it was a barren street and the sun wouldn’t be
able to do anything and there were no drugs in the car
and the sun was in the car and they told me to empty my car
and I said I couldn’t do that and they said they could arrest me
and I said for? and they asked if I had any drugs in the car
and I said no and they asked if I had any guns in the car
and I didn’t know why they changed it to guns all of a sudden
and they told me they could bring me to the station and
I said there wasn’t anything in the car and they said they weren’t
so sure of that, that the car looked pretty full to them,
but there weren’t any guns in the car or any drugs in the car
and they made me take everything out and I mean everything,
all my property—pillows and photos and books and scrapbooks
and paper that got loose and up and flew away in the wind
and my bedsheets were in the dirt on the side of the road and
a fan was on the side of the road and all my clothes, right there,
my underwear right there, my toothbrush and toothpaste in the dirt
and a car went by and its driver looked at me and I looked at her
and there was nothing I could do and then when the trunk was empty,
the car was empty, they took flashlights and they found no drugs
and they found no guns and they told me to drive more carefully,
when I had been driving perfectly and everything was on the side
of the road, this bizarre sight of a car with all its doors open, the trunk
open, and a lamp in the grass and a mirror up against a rock showing all
of this in duplicate and I put everything back in the car, slowly, them
standing there, watching.

And I had a friend who was killed
by the police. And his wife was pregnant. And he looked like a kid.
Because he was.