This strip of Friday night
nowhere pulses for our baby
blue Saturn CD skipping
the third-measure bump,
jump, falsetto cracks and we
taste it in our jaws riding
white and talking that shit
like we run the pool hall with
one leg like Kirby limping
and shucking on smooth
southpaw licks, watching VHS
tapes from the backs of magazines
with Grier and Roundtree
and playing like we black cause
we don’t know what that means
just yet and now the lights are
falling in Flatbush and all of us
and Brooklyn are paralyzed.
That hell wasn’t below baby
you turned out wrong on that one.
Look up Curtis! Yes you, reader.
