The Wall, and: Affirmative Action Babies

The Wall

for JB

I never asked about your father.And I won't pretend to understandanything about removing a name,or assuming one. Sound, I know.And how a certain laughter, too,is hand-sewn and set to memory,like braiding, or the way someonelearns how to bead a mask. Oh howwe high-step beneath our paintedumbrellas down the dim-lit avenuesof the mind. Think of those whomust have loved Ali simply becausehe was brash; muscle shifting likesmoked glass underwater, the darkand ever-widening eclipse of his mouth,his hector, his braggadocio, a blackand curling sweetness in the earlike a caramelized orange. Thinkof those who loved, too, the swiftcacophony, the quick falling consonantsof his so-called slave name. His fathermust have known before the press;Ali, Ali, how the name must have setsomething unnamed adrift. You see,I don't own my sons, but I'm sure nowI've mortgaged the brightest cornerswhere I danced until I couldn't breatheand I sang without thinking. Howcould they ever know, what is therefor any of us to understand?

Affirmative Action Babies

Well, isn't this the worldyou wanted, where the red-tiledroofs and stucco don't remindanyone of the conqueror,and the wealthy are so farremoved even from the storyof money that theirs becomesa politics shaped of pity,or better, a dark geographyof need, where the body standstransmutable as a molluskor weathering the redbay ambrosiabeetle's assault on a conifer.Of course, our parents say,we're living our own reward,as if earning is earningand our education, a handstamp,an entry onto this bright island.