Still driving while black

Driving deep in Red-wave Ohio country

With post-election Trump Vance signs

Still on front lawns and in living room windows

In smug predatory

Celebration.

Stopped at traffic light

Behind good old boy big pickup truck

With Fraternal Order of Police license plates

Trump and “Don’t Tread on My Gun Rights”

Stickers in the rear window.

I thought about my maternal

Grandparents who fled

A white-hot South Carolina in 1925

Running from Klansmen boldly disguised

In County Sheriff uniforms.

In 2024 my wife and I are now grandparents

Plotting our own escape

Not north but out of a still rabid USA

Filled with demented Trump infested

“Protect and Serve” police forces nation-wide.

They prowl in patrol cars to save their America

From black and brown people

That think and look and act like

We belong here

In defiance of all the MAGA lies.