baltimore, 1997.
his end: quite muted. hushes
of batons, scents of yells
our timeless horde must advance
-but noisily.
i cradled your mom's curly head in my arms,
as we rocked back and forth
like foundered boats.
her agony drowned out rush hour
on pratt street, made it impossible
for the buses to be innocent.
tyrone couldn't see the needle being prepared.
his great-granddaddy's back looked like
a hundred miniature rivers had been drilled into it,
anyway, now you two can finally share a smile
in the one place where bondage es verboten.
our timeless horde must advance.
supermax looms like a wire-studded iceberg,
crap-eating cops swarm
in fits of threat, but their concrete barriers
are no more relevant
than the nation's conscience.
your little brother sails through the enemy sea,
while we wobble, like drunks, on legs of glass.
he can pass, to protest in the termination chamber.
quite notably, the victim's family is absent,
there must be a gentler drama
somewhere else.
i remember, t, when we took meteor showers
in front of snarling b-boys, bruised
our knees leaping metro fences, tagged walls
and smoked blunts and bounced big phat checks.
i remember, t, before they said you did it,
that life blew fire into your stolen body:
now, you must reside in the peaks of our sorrow,
in the caverns of their corruption.
