Poem No. 18

A Brief Meditation On How To Breathe

as a boy who wears black as skin,

i’ve learnt three words all my life /

three ways to not get under a cop’s

knee: cry, hide, die —& leaving breathe

behind isn’t a mistake / it’s a sign that

even breathing carries a fine for people

of your color. Nowadays, all we check

is a cop’s shoe for an anatomy of a body’s

response to soil / how many men still

carry their breaths around / how many

more will lose theirs tomorrow, to a

wet carnation of who peels a man’s

skin better. In each scenery, Godot

never appears / we become a rosary of

swollen beads / supplicating to God, to

christen this color I wear anything but

black. For a black man, everywhere is

summer. rigged. fractured…