“Mama Speaks on Profiling” by Cortney Lamar Charleston

Some folk will always
look at you sideways, their eyes
a slant of sour
opinion, but freedom is
a forward march, baby boy.

Give cheek without cheek;
steadfast sight on glory. Christ
saved you already.
No book thrown at you can weigh
more than all that precious blood.

* * *

Cortney Lamar Charleston is a 2014 Best of the Net nominee living in Jersey City, NJ. He is an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania and its premier performance poetry collective, The Excelano Project. He is also a founder of BLACK PANTONE, an inclusive digital cataloging of black identity. His poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Rattle, Folio, Word Riot, Lunch Ticket, Storyscape Journal, Chicago Literati, Blunderbuss Magazine and HEArt Online, among other publications.