Raw Video Footage: A Year After The Shooting McBride’s Family Asks For Peace—Joe Biden Holds An Ice Cream Cone

Getting shot in the face turns
the girl into a dog. The internet says
Renisha knocks loudly on Theodore Wafer’s
windows and doors. That is a mistake.

He sends an end-stopped bullet
through her cheek, so clean it feels
conversational. A year later, he googles this
part of himself. Maybe he’s eating ice cream.

That delicious porch in Dearborn Heights
spreads its glucose across his teeth—
parts her scalp across the street.

He watches Youtube footage of the Detroit vigil—
He shot my niece down like she was a dog.

The hind legs of Renisha’s plasma rears off
the asphalt, and on the right side of his screen
Joe Biden is being polled on America’s

favorite ice cream flavor. rocky road rocky road
rocky road—his pink chin splitting through
chocolate, black spit.

Ice cream is good      years after      the expiration date
all you need is a                                    solid freezer. 

Theodore eats his weight in dairy.
His dog Lightning guards the porch.

That day, Renisha pressed her face hard
to the blinds and Lightning woke the house.

When a bloodhound says go, you go.
&then there was no more Renisha.

Blood, pink lotion, hair grease—spilling
from the bullet wound of an entire body.

He shot her—called her a bitch
because what else? The whole thing got too
messy and he was so mad that she stained his porch.

Thiahera Nurse is a Queens, New York native. She lives in Madison, WI where she is an MFA candidate in Poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is learning how to write better poems and is an expert in thinking out loud.