Big Black Buck
Eating noodle soup under the TV
a black man’s murder looping and looping through the meal
I am not brainwashed enough
not immune to this inoculation
every murder a loss no matter how they point to criminality.
We walk the lake under confusing sky
sunshine glaring between dark clouds
blowing by surprisingly fast rain then shine
then shining in rain I yell, “where is the rainbow”
two sisters on a bench smile all dazzling teeth and natural
hair
cubes of buildings hug the choppy lake
and blush flowers hug the Masonic buildings.
The wind has pushed pools of green sludge to the sides
and I wonder at the spectacle, the piles of black bodies
we witness, and witness, stew into a frenzy but cannot stop
Broadcasting photos of Kenyan students face down bullet
ridden
like the boy on the news will not bring them back or honor
life
it will not help the mainstream to see this is deliberate.
This barrage of bodies, the reading of autopsies, the
dissection of black flesh
are they always surprised at the pink humanity revealed
we all bleed the same but we don’t die the same
heaping holocaust piles of black bodies inhabit the news
if they are reported at all
those students barely made the evening rundown
the news channels too busy repeating themselves
about fallen planes full of white folks
burning up the Swiss alps.
Broke on Valentines
There
was Dre
but
we broke up every week
me
shrieking and smashing glass
silently
crushing me
There
was Anthony
who
stomped me into the Emergency room
because
I didn’t tell him
I
was throwing a gum wrapper out the window
for
his passenger
at
least that was the only reason I ever heard
before
his voice turned into monster
and
he chased me down
his
full weight pushing my face into the ground
still
I cried when February 14th rolled around
him
in jail and me alone
too
bruised up to date
Dre
resurfaced only to rip me off
in
some phony check scam
he
needed studio time for his budding rap career
After
that would come Vano
he was
in Prison every Valentines day and all the holidays
and
I was in furlough on gun charges by the end
of
me and him I fled the state
Back
East Valentines day my lovers spent with real girlfriends
Steve
Lee was the first one I called my own
mostly
I was drunk-tripping filling his mouth with words
my
paranoid mind could pick a fight with
him
just young wanting to drink with his friends
but
I would not be seconded by Crazy Horse and them
so
I left him for Johnny Walker
John
was older a more vetted alcoholic than Steve
we flirted
before Christmas and fucked by New Years Eve
snuck
around till I couldn’t keep the secret
moved
him in
in a
mess of fist fights and knives thrown
cops
called and my head split open by the cordless phone
Bleeding
for it I fought John constantly
and
unlike Steve he didn’t hesitate to hit back
my
forehead opened on the damned door jamb
I
threw the iron and hammered out his windshield
while
he tried to run me over
and
we were done before Valentines
Again
I ate my heart out
a
paper box red and empty
I
cried into forty ounces of beer
I
didn’t have another man till JB
back
in Cali knocked up round and horny
he
slid though late nights off the block and hopped up
speed
balls snorted off my dinner plates
his
slim frame chocolate lean
needle
pin eyes gravel throat drawl
they
call that heron dick
and
we could fuck all night long
He
got back out of jail when my son just made one
and
paroled straight over to my place
after
all the money was spent and job lost
the
hustle ground us down
my jealousy
about losing him back to the streets
he
was gone by MLK Day
my
head reopened with the same ass phone
he
took the car and all the shit he’d given
left
me stripped down and starving
the
sky relentless like my tears in the
year of El Nino
Valentine’s
Day rained down
found
me broke and alone
walking
home soaked to the bone.
Cassandra Dallett lives in Oakland, CA. Cassandra is a
Pushcart nominee and reads often around the San Francisco Bay Area. She was the
winner of the March 2015 Literary Death Match. In addition to six chapbooks,
she has published online and in many print magazines and anthologies such as
Slip Stream, Sparkle and Blink, The Bicycle Review, Chiron Review, This Is
Poetry: Women of The Small Press. A full-length book of poetry, Wet Reckless was released to good
reviews, from Manic D Press May of 2014. A new book Bad Sandy will be released on Dangerous Hair Press in spring of
2015.
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