Keystone
Before they defanged him, before they boiled his marrow into jelly, before the world
scuffed his sneakers & oil-stained his soul, he was an apex.
We needed cops like a fish needed a bike. Stillborn hopes, perfecting means of extinction,
meanwhile he was chewing his leg off to escape the trap.
If things were different, he would’ve been a king. Him & his homies were once called an
infestation, bystanders mistaking music of Black boy joy erupting from the pavement
for the drone of Africanized bees come to feast on sweet blood. No matter, when one takes off,
the rest follow.
Highway slowrider, remind us to pause and smell the gasoline. The fire’s been burning –
petroleum makes a lot of promises,
Praise to the tail whip, Big Poppa-wheelie, the noise that persists even when the rest of the world
has gone silent. I mean, have you ever watched a Black boy blossom –
the blue of him undone, an unfurling of wings set to the rhythm of his own design?
Speed as refuge. Kick-flipped into high gear, reclaiming every inch of asphalt, wondering
what heights could be reached by following kinship, not kkkontrol. Curiosity as care.
Like when a stag crosses a freeway because instinct remembers what was there before.
A trick spinning nuisance, a shining star, Anansi weaving a net to catch all our failed dreams.
Praise to the wheel that keeps spinning, spinning on.
