it’s not a lot
but it’s everything
born into this, said Charles,
and sloughed off into the long sleep
he’s not wrong, I say aloud
I was born, I say
Charles didn’t hear me in his coxcomb cocoon
He didn’t hear me say I was born
Into the iron cities
Into a country of Bella Lugosies
Into a narrative filled with the skulls of buffalo
Into the murder squads that put bullets in Fred Hampton’s tongue
Into a ballot box of pre-existing candidates
into an endless series of unlucky paychecks
into a Left of costume parties and facebook pages
into the churches of the opaque Jesus
into a fraternal order of desperate measures
into labor unions that shelter the trigger fingers of police
into grocery stores stacked with the fists of migrant workers
into deforested strip mall parking lots
into rivers that taste like smoke
into colonial statues on foreign continents
into fire extinguishers aimed at the ghetto
into the empathic beard of Abraham Lincoln
into a nationality that eats nations
into hospitals filled with untested rape kits
into a death penalty predicated on race
into exhaust pipes welded to the chins of babies
into preventable forest fires
into factory floors painted with layoffs
into silences erasing the latitudes of slavery
into fascism ringed with crucifixes
born to the slab
born to all this death in me
I’ve turned my hands to gun barrels
justice is worth it
even if all we are left with is ash
Social media splash image is artwork by Jit Natta.