black body / untethered and jerking / in the tall grass / to know that each new morning / another child /
will unlearn a name / that carried them here / I do not need to hear the screams / cutting through a hot
night / to know what scares the birds from their nests / I wear the skin already / I am the only one / who
holds it close / when it tries to crawl away / with every sunset / I do not need to see the soul /
swallowed by a ghetto’s cooked pavement / to know that another man / won’t come home tonight /
and I will / so long as I don’t run / anywhere / not even to find food / for my vanishing figure / inside
the store (I walk to) / a woman says / in the heat of the moment, it’s hard to know what is and isn’t a
gun / I imagine she means this / to also be true in the heat of Tulsa / or the heat of a New York doorstep
/ or the slight warmth / of anywhere we find the small miracle / of a black man / still breathing /
everything is a gun / but then nothing is a gun / running is a gun / fear is a gun / a grandmother holding
the brown face / of a trembling boy / and telling him not to take no lip from nobody who don’t share his
blood / is a gun / forgive how the darkness of night / swallows my hands / forgive me for having pockets /
forgive me for filling them / even though there are enough corpses / telling me I should know better /
it’s just that I have to hold some things close / I have to pay / for everything / that is how this country
works / I don’t know any other way / to make myself full / before my father / has to watch a video of /
my hollowing / before the gallows rise / and meet another morning / restless and hungry
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VOLUME 49.4
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This poem was a finalist for our 2015 Auburn
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