65

It was glorious while new: and is as new as it was glorious. Verb tense as manual gearshift, clutch. Sudden braking after texting. I remember Gerund Lake. Verb lacking any tense except ongoing. Start your revolution, oh White poets, on the backs of Black teens! It won't hurt a bit. They'll wear tire slippers and you en pointe shoes. Does it hurt? Radhika asks. Only at first, the dance store clerk responds. We can get used to anything, the rubble of ancient temples or the burning of police cars. It's the age of amygdala. When the towel rack fell, a syringe clattered to the bathroom floor. The War on Drugs damages my pedagogy. A moment before losing consciousness, I felt a rush of pure joy. The grief came after. It always does. Run this riot in reverse, this video of Freddie Grey dying, this massacre in the theater, this orgy of blood, this shot in the back, this cinder block in mid-air, this man's bruised eye and cheek, this mind a terrible thing to waste, this thank god the train didn't stop in Baltimore, this illusion of control at the end of your finger, this listing of items against their accretion. Grocery lists are cultural artifacts. See how they're composed.

--29 April 2015