1 June 2020
The dead man’s
brother breathes grief in, sucking air and expelling it through his
mask. On the right, “I can’t breathe”; on the left,
“Justice." Everyone takes photos,
even masked photographers as they take their knees, or chests. We
take a knee, we bend it, we offer it. The officer’s
knee was a perversion, his blank face a mask with nothing on it. The
dead man’s brother kneels beside the curb where his brother died.
He wears a Yankees cap, lives in Brooklyn. A minister lays reassuring
hands on his back, his neck. Grief as the inversion of a particular
violence. They are a peaceful family, he says. He loved this place;
don't burn it down. The president hides in a bunker beneath the
White House. There was a bicycle in the bonfire across the street. A
white girl rushed out to kneel with a young black man. As the police
advanced she put her body between him, their shields and batons.
This is time sensitive, but not in exact chronology. Trauma’s time
makes an altered sense, like collage, except it keeps falling apart.
Too humid for such glue. Elements don’t cohere into proper
equations, or chapters in a book. If you don’t let us grieve our
dead, we can’t get six feet away. There are no
ventilators on the streets to breathe for us. Americans refuse to
mourn their bad history; this is the problem entire, a historian
argues. I can’t remember her name or her book. A man calls out
“say his name!” and those in the circle filled with flowers
and peace signs call it out. Breathe in his pain, breathe out love
for the broken world he left behind. Watch his brother stand inside
the circle, then exit its embrace.
--in memory of George Floyd
3 comments:
The poem gets faster and faster, almost galloping toward the end until, surprisingly, the breathe line makes us do just that. Thank you for the image of the bicycle, the minister's hand on the brother's back and neck. Such a contrast, the loving touch of the minister, the murderous knee of the officer. "This is time sensitive.... exact chronology" is a perfect pivot here.
"If you don’t let us grieve our dead, we can’t get six feet away. There are no ventilators on the streets to breathe for us. Americans refuse to mourn their bad history"—I love how these lines tie the various strifes to each other, interrelated and inextricable.
I hope this gets sent somewhere soon. I love the straightforward descriptions, the parallels, the objective voice of the speaker, the reporting voice. And I love the moments when the scene, raw and unfolding...builds into what I call...the "shore of interpretation": image and idea coming together. Especially: "grief as the inversion of a particular violence." And that Trauma has its own time and takes on work and beauty and the puzzle of a collage. "Too humid for glue." True and memorable. "Americans refuse to mourn their bad history." I stop and read and reread this line and am slain by it. The last lines are also clear, cinematic, and memorable...the brother inside the circle and then exiting. I wish this poem didn't need to get written, but we do need it. And here it is.
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