Blood / Soil
Residential Neighborhood
Madison, Alabama
I slouch to the writing sideways
crab limbs cling to the torso in tumult
where my elbows bowl in, my knees keel
to my feet scraping off the carpet, frothing a writing body to the desk.
My reluctance is quicksand; this lyric lead. I can’t know how
each fist knots, each knuckle locks
his legs refuse gravity, legs coil on pavement
his torso goes limp, keens quiet
away from the dash-cam
his head–– its dread stillness
I said મેં કહ્યું “No English. Indian. Walking”
I said મેં કહ્યું “My handkerchief fell.
I was brought down on the grass”
The Law says:
“To every action
there is always
an opposite & equal reaction”
therefore a handkerchief falls, therefore the shoulder blades blench
therefore they offer
his body to the sky, therefore heave it
weightless, therefore wrap it to the frame
because he is no matter; he is flinch, thin as linen, light en plein air
there is more
of him, more
where a skull folds
more where chest plows over, more where one body pushes
into another, pushes a therefore into asphalt ploughs the life of blood & soil
therefore they hold it
here––\a land dry as swatches of bone
here––\drowned sound of flesh on the ground hold it
here––\land of more
>>HEY BUDDY
>>WHERE DO YOU LIVE?
>>WHERE YOU GOING?
a yard is a measure, a curb its end
this \ is how a landscape renders a portrait
as long & as wide as hemmed in history of line
was it white?
like the ones my father threw in the wash, soggy
from a day at the plant––or checkered? >>HEY BUDDY like the cotton ones he picked for Sunday Mass––
or embroidered?
like the one in custody >>HEY BUDDY
at the museum–– a silk square with Krishna flanke
by gopis holding lilies blood-tipped
bone-white & buttered, its edges worn
from worry or waiting
or was it a measure of cotton slung around necks by Thugs––
to make a noose from a slung loop of a rumāl–– a coin anointed for Kali lashed
to one end & a life dwindling
at the other; to wrangle
a traveler
then strangle that stranger?
>>YOU WANNA STAND UP? NO?
>>YOU OK?
>>CAN YOU STAND UP?
>>YOU UNDERSTAND ENGLISH?
>>NO?
The Law says: “The mutual actions
of two bodies upon each other
are always equal,
& directed to contrary parts”
but his body was one of tw0
that couldn’t speak of its place
therefore they swept leg under leg,
therefore made him look close at the land,
made him taste the verge between walk & veer
The Law says: “If you press a stone
with your finger, the finger
is also pressed
by the stone”
therefore, with these fingers, I will knot
a garland of buds plucked from the camphorwee
flailing on the curb where, cuffed
by the soft folds of his neck, his spine
snapped & swelled
& therefore we will wear its scratchy rope
for another century of stony sleep
until our sunder feels more like survival.
In February 2015, Sureshbhai Patel, 57, was visiting his son’s family in Alabama, after recently becoming a grandfather. He was there to help care for his son’s baby, who was born sooner than the family had anticipated. When he was taking a morning walk on his block, a neighbor had called the police, citing a “skinny black guy” prowling around the neighborhood. A cop car tracked him down, mere yards from his son’s home. He was assaulted & thrown to the ground by Madison Police Officer Eric Parker. The assault left Patel paralyzed. The lawsuit against Parker alleged a number of claims: false arrest, improper search & seizure, use of excessive force. A year later, Parker was acquitted of civil rights charges & was reinstated into the Madison Police Force.