And they watched as he bled
Dripping into a big plaster bowl
They waited for signs of blackness
Thickness, Corruption, death in a living man
They knew it would drip from beneath his turban
And into his eyes
They knew the name of Allah would be carved deeply into him
The color of dead men
And they knew that when it had gone he would wake
A clean man
They discovered a man beneath a pool of blood
Bone and skin and lung like any other
A still man with blue lips and red blood
But not a drop of black within him
They looked in sadness at the slack face of this man
Allah’s hold had been too tight on this one
They knew this now
A shame he had died filled with the sticky darkness
Of a people capable of murder
Eyes clouded with answers
They still could not
See.