Paulette Demers Turco

Verdict 
  —Minneapolis, 4:30 pm, April 19, 2021 

The jury sat. The jury met.
Ten hours later, verdict set
to clinch the fate of Derek Chauvin
from devastating evidence:
video taken by a teen,
witnesses—tearful—from the scene.

Chauvin’s composed in his gray suit.
His dark eyes dart across the court
as the judge informs the world
of this verdict, reading words
addressing each charge separately:

murder in the second degree, 
…murder in the third degree, 
…man-slaughter in the second degree. 
He’s found guilty for all three. 

He will remain in custody
while the world awaits the hearing
that will announce his sentencing 
to be determined in eight weeks.

The court adjourns. The pundits speak.
The court is ringed by barbed-wire fencing.
The National Guard, local police,
are facing thousands in the streets.
This city, country, is in mourning 
for all in George Floyd’s family. 
We dare to breathe. We pray for peace.

Meanwhile, six hundred miles away—
Columbus, Ohio, below Lake Erie, 
a gun is fired by local police—
a black teen dies. No name released.

Paulette Demers Turco, a Powow River Poet since 2018, editor of The Powow River Poets Anthology II (Able Muse Press, 2021), readings co-organizer and host, and a member of Alfred Nicol’s monthly poetry workshop, her interest in writing poetry began when she learned she was about to become a grandmother. She is retired from a career in academic and clinical optometry at Mass. Eye & Ear Infirmary in Boston and as a Diplomate in Low Vision in the American Academy of Optometry. She has authored two books of poetry, In Silence (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Shimmer, an Ekphrastic Poetry Collection (Kelsay Books, 2023) of her art and poetry. Awards include The 2020 Robert Frost Poetry Award, two Rockport Poetry Festival Ekphrastic Poetry Prizes, honorable mention in the 2020 Hippocrates Award Anthology, the President’s MFA in Writing Award at Lesley University.