apologies. i was part of the joy industrial complex, told them their bodies were miracles & they ate it, sold someday, made money off soon & now. i snuck an ode into the elegy, forced the dead to smile & juke. implied America, said destroy but offered nary step nor tool. i paid taxes knowing where the funds go. in April, my offering to my mother’s slow murder. by May my sister filled with the bullets i bought. June & my father’s life locked in a box i built. my brother’s end plotted as i spend. idk why i told you it would be ok. not. won’t. when they aren’t killing you they’re killing someone else. sometimes their hands at the ends of your wrist. you (you & me) are agent & enemy. there i was, writing anthems in a nation whose victory was my blood made visible, my mother too sugared to weep without melting, my rage a comfort foaming at my racial mouth, singing gospel for a god they beat me into loving. lord your tomorrow holds no sway, your heavens too late. i’ve abandon you as you me, for me. say la vee. but sweet Satan—OG dark kicked out the sky first fallen & niggered thing—what’s good? who owns it? where does it come from? satan, first segregation, mother of exile what do you promise in your fire? for our freedom, i offer over their souls. theirs. mine is mine. i refuse any Hell again. i’ve known nearer devils. the audience & the mirror. they/i make you look weak. they/i clapped at my eulogies. they/i said encore, encore. i/we wanted to stop being killed & they/i thanked me for beauty. &, pitifully, i loved them. i thanked them. i took the awards & cashed the checks. i did the one about the boy when requested, traded their names for followers. in lieu of action, i wrote a book, edited my war cries down to prayers. oh, devil. they gave me a god and gave me clout. they took my poems and took my blades. Satan, like you did for God, i sang. i sang for my enemy, who was my God. i gave it my best. i bowed and smiled. teach me to never bend again.
I did not come here to sing a blues. Lately, I open my mouth
& out comes marigolds, yellow plums. I came to make the sky a garden.
Give me rain or give me honey, dear lord. The sky has given us no water this year.
I ride my bike to a boy, when I get there what we make will not be beautiful
or love at all, but it will be deserved. I’ve started seeking men to wet the harvest.
Come, tonight I declare we must move instead of pray. Tonight, east of here, two boys, one dressed in what could be blood
& one dressed in what could be blood before the wound, meet & mean mug
& God, tonight, let them dance! Tonight, the bullet does not exist. Tonight, the police
have turned to their God for forgiveness. Tonight, we bury nothing, we serve a God
with no need for shovels, we serve a God with a bad hip & a brother in prison.
Tonight, let every man be his own lord. Let wherever two people stand be a reunion
of ancient lights. Let’s waste the moon’s marble glow shouting our names to the stars until we are
the stars. O, precious God! O, sweet black town! I am drunk & I thirst. When I get to the boy
who lets me practice hunger with him I will not give him the name of your newest ghost
I will give him my body & what he does with it is none of my business, but I will say look, I made it a whole day, still, no rain still, I am without exit wound
& he will say Tonight, I want to take you how the police do, unarmed & sudden
& tonight, when we dream, we dream of dancing in a city slowly becoming ash.
apricots & brown teeth in browner mouths nashing dates & a clementine’s underflesh under yellow nail & dates like auntie heads & the first time someone dried mango there was god & grandma’s Sunday only song & how the plums are better as plums dammit & i was wrong & a June’s worth of moons & the kiss stain of the berries & lord the prunes & the miracle of other people’s lives & none of my business & our hands sticky and a good empty & please please pass the bowl around again & the question of dried or ripe & the sex of grapes & too many dates & us us us us us & varied are the feast but so same the sound of love gorged & the women in the Y hijab a lily in the water & all of us who come from people who signed with x’s & yesterday made delicacy in the wrinkle of the fruit & at the end of my name begins the lot of us
once, there was a boy who learned to sing who then learned not to sing
once, there was a boy who heard another boy singing then told him to stop
these are the same boy this is every boy
another story: once, a boy loved summer & so moved to the sun
same story: once, a boy ran from winter but could not shake the dead trees
same story: once, a boy stood in the woods until he became it
same story: a boy is a tree
same story: my mother cries whenever she sees a tree //
Boy 1: We made love. Boy 2: I was experimenting.
Boy 1: He loves me Boy 2: He lives close
Boy 1: We have something between us. Boy 2: He is warmest inside.
Boy 1: He’s clean. Boy 2: I’m clean.
//
another story: last week a bird flew into the window. He lived,
but he would not fly hours later I did with a rock what the lord would not.
same story: once, I taught a bird a new flight, with a stone I made stranger wings.
//
answer: I did not love him answer: the curve of his shoulder at dusk answer: It helps to lie answer: like the iron in your veins gathering into a bullet answer: the pale yellow of his teeth answer: it was Thursday answer: my blues turn red when they hit the air answer: yes, you’re right
//
a night without questions is a night where everything is a gun
//
Someone killed a black boy & got away with it I am the murderer/the victim/the evidence
//
can say i’ve never had my heart broken can’t say my heart doesn’t pump a broken formula
i have no equations for my new math no addition for what in me multiplies
i was negative. he was negative. we made a positive thing.