Picture it: Sicily, 1923 Whoops I mean Thanksgiving dinner w/
family in town from the rez at a midtown resto, blackberries
in the whipped cream while the Washington Redskins blaze on
TV behind us Or last month when police clashed with water
protectors Tore down encampments and elders and children
On the same day milk-toned Oregonian militiamen r acquitted
after armed occupation of land On the same day the Cleveland
Indians r in the World Series during American Indian heritage
month Before, in the past, this world discovered war Berlin
Afghanistan Terracotta Slob War War War in the front of every
newspaper In the back of every noggin Sludgy nympho gummy
bear humps the Haribo package--Body monuments and light
cigarettes Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper and a bag of Hot Cheetos
Cholera epidemic in Haiti where there is no immunity because
Cholera was like the only thing that never befell Hispaniola
Rasp is sassy but Junk is punk Static in its intention Static in
its emotional release Static in the city Buzz of disbelief White-
house domes every convo We are a part of the rhythm nation I
get this teaching gig and being an authority figure, let me tell u
is such an emperor has no clothes situation Like being onstage
Very, "I'm more afraid of you than you are of me" Sharon Jones
glides on about being an injured prison guard on Riker's Island
Terry Gross asks, "How were you able to convince the prisoners
that you were strong enough and focused enough to do the job
and keep them inline?" Sharon says "It's the look in my eyes...
You could not show fear, and that's one thing I didn't show" Try
it on Saying "pilfer is a fun word" enough times makes it true,
like petticoat coffee cakes and the invention of blue raspberry
Dummy stay on message I never intended to be a professional
NDN but this time of year every1 wants to know do I celebrate
Thanksgiving? Janet is still with us, despite the retreat of
common sense, the retreat of fall, the retreat of Sharon Jones
and David Bowie and Prince and Vanity and Leonard Cohen
Phife Dawg and George Michael Do you remember what it was
like to feel warmth from the sun? It's odd, right? For light to
only be light and not also heat The sun conceals things too, in
its glare It makes sense that it took me the whole year before I cd
entertain talking to u again Back in our crystalline season I was
right 2 suspect worth in yr grace You aren't evil for not loving me
Maybe it's a retrograde situation Look into the sky, yearning to be
someplace else When you gobble gobble so fast it's like dinner
never happened & even now conjuring you feels like a diversion
but yr the reason I started writing this in the first place Michelle
Tea says when you write about someone, you have to be able to
look them in the face Your faces are many Your shoulders are
different colors Sometimes yr EXTREMELY tall and sometimes only
very tall Sometimes yr face is golden smooth and cut like a English
garden Sometimes yr face is lunar, bright chalk white n cratered
Sometimes we were together for six weeks Sometimes eight
months Sometimes I don't know yet We sit still in our gurgle sacks
waiting for each other to change Waiting for our stomachs to glow
pink again in the gallery night But we dimmed Each time we dim
we dimmed differently but we dimmed we did The Metro Link
Light Rail SEPTA MTBA Amtrak Bolt Bus Megabus the Peter Pan
the MAX Metro North Marc Train Charm City Circulator The
opposite of escape A firming in the firmament The couch An
airbed Yoga mat and sometimes just the floor Man punches
woman at bar Man screams at woman in diner Man yells at
woman in a hijab in Queens "Man, man, menace" is like a weird
game of "duck, duck, goose" The hollow taste on the inside of yr
mouth when u haven't eaten all day Make out with boys named
Patrick n Gerald n Martin n David and suck on his finger at the bar
with the empty blue fish tank and random lotto ball cage Drink
Shiners in his backyard Threesomes are awkward af mostly bc
everyone is wasted so it feels like heavy turbulence on the twin
bed in this liver I mean sliver of apartment Last Resort Lagunitas
Goose Island The shot special Two more packages of Reece's Old
Fashioned Narragansett and Jameson on the rocks Whatever
insulates you from the calving face of this gd world When has
sympathy for the oppressor ever worked for us? The poem and
reading the poem become each other Echolocation The sound of
a shape The news leaps through me like a talking dog--unreal,
no? I don't know where the feeling is or what to do with it n
spent most of the day w/ my eyes squeezed shut but then I
went for a run to force feed myself some endorphins Wrote a
few couplets and texted all my friends and went to the rally
and marched bc it felt restorative to blast night with my voice
box and stomp the sidewalks and the streets with friends for
twenty blocks in all directions Whole blocks of avenues in all
directions swell w/peeps shouting MUSLIM RIGHTS ARE
HUMAN RIGHTS and MY BODY MY CHOICE and BLACK LIVES
MATTER and WATER IS LIFE and TRANS LIVES MATTER Then we
got a drink and for a couple hours it seemed like we'd just been
in some horrible dream As if the fog lifted and we could hear
through the static Feel the sun again But it's only growing colder
This is just the beginning And yeah maybe the path back from
complacency is lion mane but I was afraid a long time b4 these days