how do we survive today
this season of lynchings
this hysterical blackness beat back
onto our gums like dry blood
this slow crippling and rancid incense
this monday on fire with morning?
but you don’t hear me
we would be indicted by greeting
two negros at this conference
our unspecial specialness
how we talk the way we do
the square we transmit from this morning
the genteel enunciations of race
from happy slaves
i am in orbit around sorrow
always in darkness
satellite in a mist of evaporated tears
i understand the slowness
the rehearsed answers clicking between our teeth
the interim ache
pause and response
you have gotten the news
brotha, i know you have
your eyes drift to see their spirits pass
the birmingham girls
harvested in greenest youth
the death toll has reached you
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