Cop Sonnet

By Keith Welch

We’d like to think that all our cops are fearless

that their well-trained minds are sharp and quick

but certainly they’re worse than useless unless

they can tell a pistol from a stick

Or when a suicidal person’s begging

for an ending to their tortured grief

does a policeman’s duty include abetting

desire for a terminal relief?

The cops who will not see us as their equals

will never act as though our lives, too, matter

and so we’ll go on seeing violent sequels

where more of us will end up dead or battered

Of course the real problem: our society;

the driving force: our middle-class anxiety.

Keith Welch lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where he works at the IU Bloomington Herman B Wells Library. He poetry has been published in Writers Resist, Literary Orphans, and Dime Show Review. He is currently writing a series of poems about how much he hates the winter in Indiana. Read more of Keith’s work at librarymole.wixsite.com/keithwelchpoetry and follow him on Twitter @Outraged_Poet.

Photo Credit: You can’t barricade an idea by Dying Regime via a Creative Commons license.