My Body as A Clinched Fist

I — Affliction

It was a gust—no a burst

of air—that brought the coil

to my hands time and again

and no matter what I did

to flex it didn't budge

and almost always brought me

back to Leon walking besides

me, then, in one svelte motion

not there, except for the treads

of his shoes making its way

down a street he didn't know

was a one way—the wrong

way—when he doubled back

it was clear that something

cannibalized the way home.

I vetted the treetops for a place

to perch, a vantage point beyond

the crowd that had gathered to

watch the fight but there was

no "fight"—it was all one-sided

~~seven~~ ~~ten~~ ~~eighteen~~ twenty pair

of fists and timberland boots

bared down into the boy and the

only sight of fight in him was his

body balling up like a fist to

brace the rush of even more

fists. What could I do? What

could I have done? They had begun

to also cannibalize passersby and

onlookers. I did what was customary:

collected faces for the diurnal course—

when there'd be another way to put fear

and the cheers into a vista that wouldn't

involve more fists. That day never came.

And when a fury this strong begins

to court a young fist, when anger's

calibrated with fondness for rancor,

there is only one end: to fight monsters

you must yourself become a monster.

II — Aftermath

There was no sign it ever took place

—no dents in the universe, no visible

wounds from where the paratroopers

landed their blows, no traces of Leon

no parallel bruise in your ribs, or spine,

—just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful sun

—no physical wreckage, shards of bone

no raging fire or smoldering carcass

just an echo in your bones and veins,

in the fists you packed for the day—

just sun, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful

sun—no shortcuts, same streets same

trees and you, staring at yourself like

the body's purpose was to harbor this

universe of cavity—wide enough to muse:

maybe there was still a way, so certain

there was still a way to walk away or

undo what was done—but with no body,

no witnesses no one to talk to no Leon

back at school—no sign the universe was

ever disturbed, except in your bones, and

in the loaded fist carried in your pocket—

you sat in class, reviewed homework like

you always did—later at recess, in that

odd beautiful, beautiful, beautiful sun,

whispering to the ball in your hands—

shot taker and rebounder—because even

at 13 you already knew that sometimes teeth

are a gateway to the city of one's own under-

standing and other times they are a gate

for what ails—and with no credible witness

to corroborate, other than your own reflections

in storefront windows—the ceaseless parading

of two bodies—a balancing double barrel pair

of fists—you settled into the glaring aftermath,

alone, glazed, in that beautiful, beautiful, sun.

III — Metamorphosis

When a burst of air is enough

to make your hand tremble

or when the wake in your jaw

is from sharpening one tooth

against another in your sleep—

to face a teeth-to-cheek world

that brings clots, hunger to jaw-

bone blocks—you realize no part

of the body is immune, not even

air in the lungs. The pressure and

heat accost because the fear and

sorrow of trying to walk away

that day had fused to your DNA

—first heat and first pressure came

with the first swing or first Timber-

lands or knock-offs—same width,

same assault—on the chest—when

Leon gasped you gasped and when

he flinched you flinched—the weight

alone of boots on his ribs should've

killed him but didn't—though some-

thing callused that day, conjoined—

and when the crowd broke away you

broke too—one version went home,

did his homework, and was good

the other still on the lawn trying to

be less like a young birch perched

and brazening through the boreal

climate and the body's consequent

retaliation. In one body, there's a boy

fleeting—in another you are that boy

ratifying, ratifying, ratifying the way

back home on that paltry afternoon,

in that erring, beautiful, beautiful sun,

when your body's genesis of an open-

and-close season exposed the hours

of expand-and-constrict, until all that

was left was the index finger, primed—

its new delegation as terminal member.

IV — Retaliation

When the body has had enough—

before the recoil into a ball of dust

or ash—when it is in full revolt—

some of the tucked impressions

one tries hard to contain emerge

as shakes or episodes of mania—

rushing back like blood suddenly

pooling in Leon's eyes two days

before being jumped, when a near

scrimmage in the hallway was

squelched, thought to have died—

but in one svelte motion the block

was rendered gridlocked.

Fists over a glare matured into markers

for measuring seasons and would later

be the reasons why you you'd wake one day

a bit mean—didn't know yourself, and

had new hands, and had new feet—

finding yourself running down a street

in a rum frenzy—white moon haloed

against black, smoky sky—tangled up

in the waylaid traffic of recall: fists over

a glare—Frankie sabered into an infinite

goodbye—air pressure in full distress in

your lungs—dust filling gaps of motion.

When the body has had enough, mind

retaliates: under the glaze of a perpetual

and beautiful, beautiful sun, jejune fists

turned maulers bid Leon into a cosmic

gutter wide enough to muse that maybe

he made it out from under their blows

and maybe Leon is sitting somewhere,

blazed, growing bald on the head once full

of braids, musing on a roach and talking

shit about when he schooled them suckas

with a pivot and you are remembering

only what almost happened—not how

your entire body commenced a tucking

rotation until it became a full-fledged fist.

V — Revolution

Once a year I am reminded to

put flowers on the body's knuckle

grave—do this to remember being

young, fisted and afflicted, for years

spent taking the long way home to

avoid brandishing the self that made

walking these streets an endless bout

between the ghost of a childhood and

a new body of evidence. Nobody tells

you that no matter the outcome, ever-

body dies in these streets—it's a pithy

hand—the letdown's grime happens all

the time: perfecting the b-boy stance,

hoping it would one day build a descrier

out of best guesses, all the years I walked

to school with haste as the myopic pull

of loiters accosted my legs into shortcuts

and retreats—glazed in that beautiful,

beautiful, beautiful sun: the body is a fist

is a fist is a pithy hand in a drag-out bout is

a fist is a fist is a fist is a body is a fist is a

fist is a fist and is never satisfied—so many,

too many fists: Greg, Leon, Shawn, Frankie,

Subrock, Foe, Angel, Jamal, Tony—write

their names to remember bruising so easily

inside—it's a pithy hand, a drag-out grind,

the body is a fist is a fist is a fist is a fist

the body is a fist is a fist is a fist is hiding

from the heinous world...outside—don't pry

'cause in these hands a bid or tomb's brilliant

reprise—the body is a fist is a fist is a fist

the body is a fist is a fist is a fist—and they

are blind and they can't see the body is a fist

is a fist is a fist—the body is a fist it's a pity,

a dragged-out bout; it happens all the time.

Source: When My Body Was A Clinched Fist (Black Lawrence, 2020)