American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

When the wound is deep, the healing is heroic. Suffering and ascendance require the same work.

You will never assassinate my ghosts.

It's not the bad people who are brave I fear, it's the good people who are afraid.

Give the world half of what Nina Simone gave it, and you have lived an exceptional life.

I'm a time lord. My armor is flesh and spirit. I carry a flag bearing a different nation on each side. I carry money bearing the face of my assassins.

I remember my sister’s last hoorah. She joined all the black people I’m tired of losing, All the dead from parts of Florida, Ferguson, Brooklyn, Charleston, Cleveland, Chicago, Baltimore, wherever the names alive are Like the names in graves. I am someone With a good memory & better imagination.

No one Mentions Jesus' sister. Nothing is written About her. She had no children, she was in her Forties the first time she turned water into wine.

Sometimes the father almost sees looking at the son, how handsome he'd be if half his own face was made of the woman he loved

Assassin, you are a mystery / To me, I say to my reflection sometimes

If you think a hammer is the only way to hammer / A nail, you ain't thought of the nail correctly.

Assassin, you are a mystery to me, I say to my reflection sometimes. You are beautiful because of your sadness, but you would be more beautiful without your fear.

It’s not the bad people who are brave I fear, it’s the good people who are afraid.

Glad someone shot deserved to be shot finally, George Wallace. After you send your basket of balms And berries for the girls the bomb buried in Birmingham, After you add your palms to the psalms & palm covered Caskets of the girls the bomb buried in Birmingham, I’ll muster a pinch of prayer for you. You are the blind Protagonist of a story that begins, “In my previous life My work involved returning runaway slaves to slavery,” And ends with the image of a black nurse pushing Your old ass in a wheelchair. Can you guess what black Folk passing empty cotton fields feel, George Wallace? I damn you with the opposite of that feeling. I keep thinking I’m confessing for the first time, the reason I fear you, And you keep asking why I’m telling this old story again.

Suppose you could speak nothing but money And acrimony. Suppose all the sunflowers Van Gogh destroyed, all the stones in Virginia’s Pockets & all the stones Georgia painted as vaginas Were simply a matter of making something greater Than money. Prince taught us a real man has A beautiful woman in him. Suppose we cannot Forget what happened in Money. Suppose You’re someone who celebrates Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday. Suppose he was someone whose love For a black woman was blinded by blackness, Hers & his, yours & mine. I ain’t mad at you, Assassin. It’s not the bad people who are brave I fear, it’s the good people who are afraid.

Sometimes Is a good answer to any existential question.

In this we may be alike, Assassin, you & me: we believe We want what’s best for humanity. I'll probably survive Dancing with the kinds of people who must find refuge Among the sweat & rancor of a Fish & Chicken Shack But Assassin, they'll probably murder you. Do you ask, Why you should die for me if I will not die for you? I do.

Nothing saddens me more Than Nigger, one whose master has no Lord. No word leaves me more graced by shame.

It feels sadder when a black person says Nigga Because it sounds like Nigger.

The man was high yellow In public, afraid of himself, pretending his music Was material when in fact, it was the opposite: Like a breath that comes so quickly you know You’re breathing ether: either atmospheric And anonymous as the air against a window, Or indefinite & mute as a curtain of wind.

Something happens everywhere in this country Every day. Someone is praying, someone is prey.

Probably all our encounters are existential Jambalaya. Which is to say, can a nigga survive?

Goddamn, so this is what it means to have a leader You despise, the racists said when the president Was black and I’ll be damned if I ain’t saying it too. Is this a mandate for whiteness, virility, sovereignty, Stupidity, an idiot’s threats & gangsta narcissisms threading Every shabby sentence his trumpet constructs?

I live a life That burns a hole through life, that leaves a scar for life, That makes me weep for another life. Define life.

America, you just wanted change is all, a return To the kind of awe experiences after beholding a reign Of gold. A leader whose metallic narcissism is a reflection Of your own.

Christianity is a religion built around a father Who does not rescue his son. It is the story Of a son whose father is a ghost.

Probably, ghosts are allergic to us. Our uproarious Breathing & ruckus. Our eruptions, our disregard For dust.

Even the most kindhearted white woman, Dragging herself through traffic with her nails On the wheel & her head in a chamber of black Modern American music may begin, almost Carelessly, to breathe n-words. Yes, even the most Bespectacled hallucination cruising the lanes Of America may find her tongue curls inward, Entangling her windpipe, her vents, toes & pedals When she drives alone. Even the most made up Layers of persona in a two- or four-door vehicle Sealed in a fountain of bass & black boys Chanting n-words may begin to chant inwardly Softly before she can catch herself. Of course, After that, what is inward, is absorbed.

Are you not the color of this country's current threat Advisory?

Possibly twilight makes blackness dangerous Darkness. Probably all my encounters Are existential jambalaya. Which is to say, A nigga can survive. Something happened In Sanford, something happened in Ferguson And Brooklyn & Charleston, something happened In Chicago & Cleveland & Baltimore & happens Almost everywhere in this country every day. Probably someone is prey in all of our encounters. You won't admit it. The names alive are like the names In graves.

My hunch is that Sylvia Plath was not Especially fun company. A drama queen, thin-skinned, And skittery, she thought her poems were ordinary.