This poem originally appeared as part of the Lament for the Dead project, which published an elegy for every person killed by police and every police officer killed in the line of duty, in the summer of 2015.
Earl Jackson, 59, a career corrections officer himself, was killed in a confrontation with police in Alachua County, FL on July 25, 2015. The first officer on the scene heard shots fired while he was calling for backup, and these shots, though not witnessed, were determined to be "at the officer." For this reason, Jackson was denied a traditional law enforcement burial. Jackson died of asphyxiation while being pinned down by a vehicle called a Rook, which assists SWAT teams in wooded areas.
Attention
for Earl Jackson
I will be your honor guard
cover you in my blues
cast down stars upon your casket
and let the stained stripes run
I will raise my hand to my head
stand stone-faced and lock-jawed
with glistening panic eyes and
halt there
I will fold and refold the flag
until it makes sense—
long after the bugle is done
wailing its thin song into the air
Kristen Roach
