In the night with daughters
I subject myself to the dangers of the street
I camp to feel the pain in my joints. To feel the hardness of the ground wreck my backbone just so.
Just so they can frolic with flashlights and hear the owls hooting by.
From inside the dusty tent
All the silences of the darkness are amplified
The skunks shuffling through the hedge
The squirrel poop dropping from the pine branches
The unexperienced night breeze, and the gnawing of termites mark the hours.
There are no weirdos. There are no knifings or hollering men with their brown paper bags.
There are no stray dogs or broken glasses in the street.
There is only the marginal discomfort of an adventure. But if I were to dream perchance there would be nightmares. Of Pookie in the alley on New Years Eve. Of the hard bathroom tiles and the negligent youth director. Of the dare beneath the sycamores and the face full of shit. Of the placid lie and Officer Bell. Of the griddled goldfish and the mothers pulling hair. Of the garage fire and the swinging skillet. Of the swaying booty butter and subsequent Itch.
Of the betrayal. Of the omerta. Of the dodge.
Of the broken walk, the ringworm and the bus ride to jail.
Of the shiv and the sherm. Of the roaches in batter.
Of the patrols and the checkpoints. Of the drawling reproach and the sitter's backhand.
Of the unwashed baby and hand-me-down clothes.
Of the uncle that uncle that everyone knows.
Of the quiet, the endless quiet, the silent long ignorant years and the secrets never told. Of the fear. The monstrous unendurable fear until the Juneteenth of May in the Jungle of Nool, when a voice from above not caring nor cruel, said throw down your bowl and give up your gruel. It was only my echo, the sound of a fool.
I have journeyed far from the hole and dream it anew.
I see myself in lightweight togs unarmored for throwdown. Like grubs under petrified wood, my brothers all younglike and full of it mirror my sadness, anonymous to all but those who can't do, and can't teach and still preach as if God really changes things.
And I've seen his hope crumble wearing the cleanest white t-shirt a dollar can buy
And hedging his bets just like those who don't try. Ahead is the wall. A stumble. A fall.
And he comes up all scratch-faced, bruised lips swelling bigger.
You know what they call him. Just like they called Bigger.
The erudition of despair a well-worn symphony drumming a 4/4 time in the temple of doom.
You're black and you're black.
You're black and you're black.
You're black and you're black.
You're black and you're black.
And pride and tears and love and sorrow. Joy and agony, misery and emptiness. Tick away with each beat of my heart, our heart, the old black heart. Without childbirth or violence who would know we bled red? So black is the beat, so dark is the heat, so deep are the tears that through four hundred years we memorize ancestors fears.
And await calamity.
Anticipate treachery.
Condone lechery. Better spend those dollars now boy. There ain't no future in your frontin'.
Camping with daughters, without locks, without dread.
Outside of a devil's domain. Outside of a nightmare of pain.
Outside on the lawn. From easy dusk to pleasant dawn.
If I should die before I wake let it be in the blankest of sleep.
Let me not dream that I am that I was lest I curse the name of God
For abandoning me to the ghetto, my prison, my birthplace, my all.
Let me remember the love of my middle age in the land of the free
past that middle passage that brought me to be
Mocked in my skin and yet finally me.
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