for Jayson
What they won’t do is enumerate
the ever-fresher types of way I’ve learned
to live beneath the gun. Amid this country’s
latest crazed nostalgias, my body
has been quickest to choreograph a future.
This body didn’t teach them all they know
about gore, but damn if it didn’t try.
I fashion from my panic this corona
of divergence, and they want my head
as trophy for its danger heirlooms. What
they should fear in my father is already
breath in my chest. Other than my mother
who else can braid a wealth from rain and smoke?
What they don’t know is this work. This game.
Remember I was venison, was mounted,
was mug-shot, and still was serving face.
I haven’t been hunted to anybody’s brink.
I am the brink. Fuck what they heard.
My whole herd has chewed the cud of toed
lines and had it with these roaming borders.
What they can catch are my cloven hooves:
I’ll be all kinds of demon. Put that on
a list of shit for which I am now here.