After Rusty had killed the man
(He shot him in the back)
he needed to reshape the evidence.
That man–he came at me!
This, of course, was hogwash
But the shots were justified
(All 12 of them to the back)
self-defense is such an easy excuse
– he came at me! – he would claim
as if there was any doubt
that he’d get away with it
given their respective complexions.

The strategy is always the same
for those with such a delicate disposition:

shoot to kill
then keep shooting.

It grew up with him, like a brother
bending his ear “you’re the victim”
reassuring him that he was is always right.

Given the delicate disposition of the white southern man
all that blustery bravado – the white noise of a red herring,
the aggressor’s claim on victimhood
is factually tenuous but morally resolute.
Full of how-dare-yous and gentility
rebel flags and blood money.
I don’t know which came first: the delicate disposition
or the proclivity for violence,
but I am certain the two are linked.

As linked as the war is with racism,
and as those young men treated like dogs
in Florida, Missouri, and South Carolina,
(even in Union country: OH and NY)
that strategy becomes refrain

shoot to kill
then keep shooting

because the thing for him far more important
than human life is his honor and power.
But his tell is that circumspect tick –
the unabashed urgency – the internal
eternal desire to prove himself right,
preferably by gun or by noose.

What was the slight? you ask?
The man showed Rusty a face
then revealed that the man carried
not a window, but a mirror.