(Black lady shot and killed last week for shoplifting at WalMart)

I never knew when I left you there

that I would never see you again.

They told me you were killed

in a misunderstanding about your bill.

Shot dead at the Courtesy Counter

when you argued about the special.

And when I got there they told me

I had to go to the Courtesy Counter too.

What the fuck am I going to tell the kids?

“Mommy died shopping for us?”

In the parking lot I saw them all

running big carts of shit to their cars.

I looked at the sky and wept.

And for that I got dirty looks from them.

I told myself this can’t be happening;

that life cannot be this meaningless.

What has made us into people who will kill

over products that won’t even exist next year?

Where do I go and who do I talk to about

why we should do something before it is too late?

Should I have asked them in the parking lot:

“Why do you have nothing to say?

“If it were your wife or child, would you

just load up the car and drive away?”

I will walk the streets now and ask people

to sign my petition, to help save us all.

And when I am arrested for it, when I am shot dead for it,

will the sky rain down the only tears?

Tears that won’t erase the horror

of how all of us let this come to pass.

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.