In Minneapolis, the January sun
Lay stark and bright across the hardened sleet,
A mother kissed goodbye her youngest one,
Then turned for home, her morning near complete.

She saw the armored strangers in her street,
Their faces masked, their purpose cruel and clear,
And stopped to watch—no protest, no retreat—
Not knowing death was standing somewhere near.

“I’m not mad at you,” she said—her final words
To men who’d come with weapons and with rage,
A sentence soft as song from morning birds,
A blessing from a woman in a cage.

Three shots rang out. She’d turned the wheel to leave
When bullets tore through glass and then through bone,
Her body seized, the car crashed—no reprieve—
They cursed her as she bled and died alone.

They blocked the doctor. Made the stretcher wait.
Let minutes bleed like mercy to the ground.
Then spoke of “self-defense” to hide the weight
Of murder that cameras had coldly found.

Her glove compartment held no gun, no knife—
Just stuffed animals for children yet to know,
Small relics of an ordinary life
Now splattered red on Minnesota snow.

She wasn’t armed. She wasn’t breaking laws.
She briefly paused, then turned to drive away—
Yet they would use her death to serve their cause:
A “terrorist”—the blood price she would pay.

We say her name because they wanted silence,
We light the candles where they spilled her blood,
We stand against the ordinary violence
That killed a mother with the name of Good.

And so we learn what “Good” can come to mean
In empires that have turned upon their own:
The guns fall silent, but her light is seen—
A mother’s grace outlasts the tyrant’s throne.