Eric D. Goodman

BLACK NECK BLUE

Some say it was the weight of the knee,
but you and I know better—

it’s the weight of centuries,
bruises pressed deep upon black skin.

We watch from across the street,
from behind window blinds and screen doors,
using smartphones to record rather than report.

And report to who, when the attackers
are those intended to protect?

Watch Floyd’s face go blue,
stale air becoming harder to breathe,
as though blue and black haven’t been
sharing streets and skin
longer than this country has existed.

There on the street, black neck blue,
gasping voice calling for his mother,
echoing the howls of other men,

their faces pressed to the ground,
struggling for breath
beneath the weight of that same relentless knee.


Eric's YouTube video reading of "Black Neck Blue"

ERIC D. GOODMAN is author of Faraway Tables (Yorkshire Publishing, 2024), Wrecks and Ruins (Loyola University's Apprentice House Press, 2022), The Color of Jadeite (Apprentice House Press, 2020), Setting the Family Free (Apprentice House, 2019), Womb: a novel in utero (Merge Publishing, 2017), Tracks: A Novel in Stories (Atticus, 2011), and Flightless Goose (Writer's Lair, 2008).