Think, Think

Think about the air invisible as it uncurls

a wave of toxins. Think about how its fingertips

trace the skin as a baton falls on the flesh

merely seconds later. Think about how heavy

metals brown the water and we are told to drink.

Think about how many of us wonder when

the roofs over our heads will be tongues evicted

from the languages of home. Think about how every

person needs a doctor, but everyone doesn’t get one.

Think about how savings mean nothing to the crazy

fine print circumscribed like obsolete glyphs. Think

how law books fall open and hopscotch for anyone

who keeps writing checks. Think, think, think like

Aretha Franklin belting what you tryna to do to me?

Think how the law keeps shuffling the numbers to fit

some constant where acknowledging who is human

is posited in some philosophy or some mathematical

equation that pretends that logic is its function, when

blood needs to find something superior, something

that denies how human is defined by a much wider net

cast by some divine fisherman, or perhaps an African

goddess in a gown laced with sea foam, but place markers

for faith are constantly moved toward a crucifix. A human

can find more than one path, I hope. Think about how,

every day, someone is hoping for some simple thing

like fresh bread lightly toasted, the ability to walk without

pain, a chance to shower, a moment free of fist and jeer,

a moment singing victorious as if we could level the wrongs

and leave the world upright, like a gospel-drenched woman

singing freedom, freedom after forgiveness, after you change

your mind, ’cause you need to think (and act) to be free.

Notes:

This is part of a portfolio of work that appeared in Poetry’s December 2020 issue and is excerpted from Carving Out Rights from Inside the Prison Industrial Complex (Hat & Beard Press, 2020), a collection of poems and essays about human rights accompanied by foam block prints of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by artists at Stateville Prison, edited by Tara Betts, Aaron Hughes, and Sarah Ross. Find the rest of the portfolio here.

Source: Poetry (December 2020)