there, on the ground like dirt or a bird
december froze & may thawed, blood
misted, crying for any mother, the boy
who called your mama a bitch bleeds
our love for you, his wings frozen & fighting
the cold wind of our sneakers.
we storm him because we love you
& your mama has fed us & only us
is allowed to call her out her name
because we know her name, Ms. Jones,
& she bad & only we can say that
& when we bad she has permission
from our mamas to beat us like we hers.
we hers like you hers. you our boy.
we pool our punches into the boy
like quarters for a bag of flaming hots.
we make him look like a bag of flaming hots.
lord forgive me, but i don’t regret it.
&, on the real, all these summers later,
i miss it. i wish a little bit to gather around
a man’s body & stomp in the name of love,
beat what he said about my next to blood
back into his vermilion mouth, to make
his mouth a beautiful, smashed tomato.
really tho. Leland, you remember
how we beat that nigga? our midd