Upon Learning, in a Report on the Footage of a Sheriff’s Deputy Shooting Sonya Massey to Death in Her Kitchen, of Massey’s First Words to the Deputy
By Jennifer Freed
I, too, have felt myself to be prey.
What woman has not?
But I live
in a white body.
If ever I
dialed 911, afraid
of a man
prowling
around my home,
I would not need to say,
when the officers came
to my door—
no—let me rephrase: it would never
occur
to me
that my very first words
would be
Please don’t hurt me.
Jennifer L. Freed’s collection, When Light Shifts (2022 finalist, Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize), explores the aftermath of her mother’s stroke and the altered relationships that emerge in a family health crisis. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net, The Pushcart Prize, and the Orison Anthology. Awards include the 2022 Frank O’Hara Prize, the 2020 Samuel Washington Allen Prize, and Honorable Mention for the 2022 Connecticut Poetry Award. She teaches adult education programs from Massachusetts, USA. Please visit jfreed.weebly.com.
Poet’s note: The news story that mentions Sonya Massey’s first words is here.
Photograph by Joe Piette via a Creative Commons license.
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