Hear me.
I love you, my cracked-belly porcelain lamp,
Ha l lowe e n, De t roi t 2013
Shawntai Brown
my swinging fist
my pawing lion tamed (beaten) out of its roar.
I love what you sound like at 5 pm –
every hottest hip-hop and
r&b station tempering the
nodding heads over dashboards
big body Seville steel vibrating, mimicking tempos;
Patcheyed cars with one working headlight
rattling the last glows of life down our streets;
every hanging bumper
challenging its bungee to hold a few more blocks.
Almost home.
But,
I remember the rise of your infinity of lights
like a string of christmas memories,
every bulb playing its part in
making spirits bright; a glow growing over cityscape
when we lost our sun.
It’s 6 pm.
Do you know where your children are?
Not playing devils dressed in devil horns
and cape, looming house to house in night’s disguise.
Indoors, everyone.
This city is too unsafe for chocolate
or devilish laughs breaking under memories of streetlights.
Kenis Green Jr. should be at football practice,
donned in a green #32 jersey, waving to his dad
on the sidelines, mask in hand because he’s worn it
under helmet, too ready to collect Butterfingers this evening;
not drenched in blood, not bullet-torn and
breathless and fatherless,
his little brown face stiffened like
freezer-kept candy
from last year's collection.