NYU Black Renaissance Noire NYU Black Renaissance Noire V. 16.1 | Page 20
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By
SHAYLA
LAWSON
Il Canal Grande—The Grand Canal
It is as though space, cognizant here more than anyplace else of its inferiority to time, answers
it with the only property time doesn’t possess: with beauty.—Joseph Brodsky
(n)
I am thinking about time About being
in
it
The way a second feels more akin
to the
churn of a boat motor than anything that ticks
Second-
hand / Time is not / does not
/ get handed over /
reused
The
motor guzzles up to the pace
of a heart and churns white
foam— time (n) the space waking
behind us
We steer up the canal : the moment
I can’t see what’s coming / I am
watching / the city / blur
/ along from the cabin seat of / a small
yacht : their pastel
smudged as if with the back of a hand
I
am
avoiding the boat captain’s questions about the
soul song mumbling
the boat’s small radio::
Who is it \
American / as if skin
alone should make one a goddamned r&b
aficionada
I am
thinking about being on time The party \ I will enter
\ in the same
red \ dress : although I have no recollection : of this
being \ the time
the same \ particular evening : of Alex : of that tiny
kindness
he shared with the condensation of glasses and
bass-emboldened
90s loud uttering from speaker boxes : the dank
( )-shaped disco / Piccolo
Mondo / to be touched by a humanity and not
/ by hand \
to be defended : ( ) A London woman
touches / my hair / my cheeks
/ sloshing my bare arms with her stiff pink
drink [Me] a burden
of small beauties I am used to possessing
only in partownership
You are so
pretty
for a black girl
Alex looked
indignant
\ like the presence of skin &
strobe
shouldn’t make you /
an island
on a goddamned holiday
excursion
Non
Toccare (Don’t Touch [Me])
He won’t
remember this
How
he chastised
her heavily before \ they
exited together
He might
have lied about what
followed : her sadness
How she
let him put his hand
down her blouse while they waited
for the n-line The time
it took her sorrow to present
an offering ( )