Like a carcass-fat lazy river,

the chyron lays bare the fates

of Chiron & nem, & we call

that Tuesday. I’m saying boys

become memories & nobody

flinches. Black girl turns up

missing & business as usual.

I know the status quo, that it

hovers above us, kept aloft by

wings of wasps. O the woe in

the winds from those wings.

The wails in their wake. Odds

are you, too, know at least one

somebody snatched up by a

hungry bullet. The blood on

every other headline turns my

skin into spiders. I curl away

from TV screens like a light-

allergic peony. I keep the drapes

drawn in all my rooms. Told

the sun she ain’t welcome cuz

she always got new names to

report stolen from the night

before. She must be tired of death’s

grit on her tongue, the whines

of souls made to bury those they’ve

birthed. Ain’t no way she can’t

hear the choir of cracked hearts

chorusing hoarse hollers up to

her morning light—somebody’s

stink-stink now a song stuck

like a lump in the throat of a

love left behind. Left to wonder

if their gone-too-soon found

their way to a place softer than

this country of shrapnel, with

its clouds full of acid rain & mile

after mile of soil bloodied to ruin.

‍

—After Tariq Thompson
‍

What of would-be doctors born in chains.

Authors forbidden to carry pencil & paper.

Prospective politicians pecked to death by

Crow, left out to be lunch for vultures. To say

I was first is to deny those who were denied chance.

I hear you—there are billions of stars in the universe,

what we call the sun just happens to be the closest one,

the one that’s still alive. You get it, all them bones under

Alabama could’ve been put to better use in their living.

I see them in my dreams. Sometimes it’s hands reaching

out the muck like reeds in a swamp. Others, a meadow

overwhelmed with tulips, their yellow cups brimming

with yellowed teeth sent skyward like pollen when the

winds blow. I wish I knew what to make of this.

‍

—After Tariq Thompson
‍

Midnight rain pelts the roof, & sometimes I confuse its sound with that

of a noose being knotted. The wind assaults the shutters & I think

approaching mob. We pace our children through practice drills praying

these skills are never tested. At dinner we sit round our table hoping

the window meets no opposition to its wholeness. I know better my

shotgun’s heft than a night of peaceful slumber. I’d swap the broken

glass in my stomach for butterflies, but that wouldn’t lower the threat on

my house. I could stop speaking truth but that wouldn’t make me any

less a nigga in Mississippi. Fear not is actually terrible advice for a

nigga in Mississippi. At the marches, we still singing of futures promised

to too few of us. Police dogs remember the sweet of our blood & whine

for more. When shot through a megaphone, a threat is usually a

promise. When shot through Black skin, a bullet is usually forgiven.

When freedom rings, we’ll answer & ask, what took you so long?

—After Jose Olivarez

‍

Like a rolling stone’s mirror image, I have laid my hat in homes

unfit for what love I know to give. I have lingered in the afterglow

of yesterday for years. Longer than any sane man should.

I want to learn what the birds know—how, in lieu of weathering

‍

a winter bound to repeat, they find a new nesting place

beyond grayed skies. I’ve not yet met a cold wind

I won’t shoulder through, never perched on an icy branch

& slipped to the leaves below. Born both Black & here,

‍

I’ve only ever known what wants me gone, & how to meet

that want with my own desire to be unmoved. O, beasts of

feather & talon, you swift, soaring beauties, tell me how to be like you,

averse to seasonal dying, singular in trajectory toward all that is green

& fruit bearing. I want to know your ways, how to live one foot

out the door. How to mount a breeze, & sail to safer harbors.

‍

If I am not insulted within thirty seconds

of walking into a room, I know I am not

amongst my niggas. Praise the tongues

that paint me with the worst names.

My chaotic choristers, my closest kin

locking in on my leaning sneakers

& nappy ass hair. Smiling with teeth

yellow enough to be a halo, they

crown me. Roast me royal. Stab me

in the gut with soft daggers, all before

I can even shed my coat & pop a squat.

I blab rebuttals bout bygone hairlines,

broken diets, their terribly rolled blunts.

Here, in this sanctuary of slurs, I am

finally enough—though my niggas will

say I am too much, noting the way my

muffin top spills over my waistband

& how a B-cup wouldn’t stand a chance

against my chest. All things considered,

I can think of no place I’d rather be

than in this room rife with chuckles &

boozy breath, situated round a rickety

card table dented with memories of

spades games that got a bit heated.

O, my friends, my niggas, my heart &

heart & heart, I am lost outside any

room not darkened by your shade,

curse me crooked. Mock my mannerisms

& choice of cologne, my sloop footed

gait & obvious bluffs. Rebuff my hot

takes & take the last hot & ready slice

when you see me reaching for it. You

deserve this, the grease, the good &

plenty of a cup of brown & a belly

laugh at my expense. Life is very long,

& so full of woe, it’s best we be here,

sharing cigs & bad advice, thinking about

all the years we’ve had & all the years

we have left.

I awake to sounds of my dog puking in the kitchen

& my box fan gently humming its dusty aria.

I yawn & scratch, forgetting, for once, to regret

making it through the night. Today, it seems, my

brain is on my side. I trudge to the window, see

the frost night gifted, wonder if my gas tank has

enough for me to warm the engine & make it to work.

Winter has a routine I wish anxiety would employ.

I rouse my boy & cook his breakfast of smoked sausage

& tater tots. We’re sitting at the table gnawing our vittles,

going over numbers & letters between greasy swallows,

when the fact that I will someday be one of his memories

begins echoing in my head loud as a storm siren.

My boy’s voice becomes a spore in my tornado

of alternate endings. & this is not the time. Not as

he tells me the octopus has three hearts, swinging his legs

& grinning like fields of wheat wave & smile at the sun.

‍