The SFPD Said It Would No Longer Release
Mug Shots b/c They Reinforce Racial Biases

It wasn’t indoctrination
but a lesson in perpetuation
offered to my younger self,
how they try to teach us that
a black face is a bad face,
paging through that morning’s paper,
pointing out the stacked reports of
robbery and mayhem, murder, some
partnered with small dark squares,
the smudge of a black man’s face.

“When there’s no picture,” he told me,
“you know a white man did it.”

That was my Jewish father, long dead.
And what would he make of our century,
to which he looked ahead with hope;
would he stoop to construct
a life based on ancient wisdom,
imagine accounts of mercy and
truth meeting together, accompanied
by harp, a bright space created by
the kiss of peace and righteousness?

“If it’s not easy,” he’d tell me,
“you’ll know that God is in it.”

Or is that a dream, a false memory?
My father was, or claimed to be, an atheist
but, truth be told, if he were here,
he’d be shaking his fist at the sky.

*

Shifra Shaman Sky is a poet living in Kew Gardens NY. She holds an MFA from New York University, but her experience spans many disciplines, from textile design to website administration. Shifra has contributed to publications as varied as Voices Found: Women in the Church’s Song (Church Publishing) and Letters to J.D. Salinger (University of Wisconsin Press); her chapbook, Touching the Nooksack, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2021.