Perhaps We Are Our Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams

Or  liberation was bludgeoned by so many reforms it stopped              

             showing up on picket signs

             maybe wildest dreams tripped on a pile of chain-linked

             orange jumpsuits then fell

             down by the riverside waded

             in forehead-height water but couldn’t swim

             maybe capitalists are ravenous beasts with recyclable diets

             for the wrong skin all parts of human existence turn plastic

             maybe as long as there are cages there will be

             mouths to feed off of them

Or we were en route to another planet but fell

             off  the back of the magic school bus

             and every decade we invent a dance / a new language / to plan

             our escape back home

Or America should be in our stomachs

             maybe we was the flood god sent

             four centuries ago that didn’t finish its plate

             maybe Denmark Vesey had a solid blueprint

             but needed more people on the job

             maybe civil rights is a carrot dangling in front of a rabbit on a treadmill

Or the sky called and wants its children back

             but the earth is a selfish tantrum holding

             onto toys that don’t belong to it

Or, and hear me out, we just out here tryna function

             maybe black excellence is white supremacy’s baby cousin

             maybe excellence is the unstained white collar on my father’s favorite

             blazer after a night of line dancing and endless refills on scotch

             maybe $10 before 11:00 is the closest thing we got

             to a revolution tonight

             perhaps the neon gold glisten off a rope

             chain is a kind of rebellion

Or it’s just a wonder we survive the genocide.