when black girls go missing: for Relisha Rudd

On missing girls

When little girls go missing

We search in parks

In places where little girls

Don’t belong

Lest we believe the little red riding hood

Stories about safety

About land

And woods

And trees

When little girls go missing

In your backyard

Becomes a crime scene

Its hard not to sit at your

Computer crying

Or begin to pray over each of the

Babies in your program

When little girls go missing

 We search

We search for our own mother’s gardens

Trying to make sense of

Girl hood

Of woman hood in wooded areas

Where life doesn’t grow

When little girls go missing

We try to debate the facts

We try to make sense

I know so many little girls

Beautiful ones

With big eyes

Who have seen too much

Who know too much about the cold world

Who I worry about

How poverty, and desperation, how accountability and schools

And police and parents and “god fathers” and shelters

Deal with complexity

Deal with not knowing

Deal with ambiguity

Deal with right and wrong

Deal with life

Deal with you when you’re missing from school

Or when you’re just missing

When little girls go missing

It’s hard not to notice

Not to try to write about

Not to cry about

The girls who are seen and unseen

The ones in my own backyard