We woke to life in the 80s. The air dyingfrom industry & industry dying. Train brakesgroaning to a stop & that singular scentof horses, their muscular lather & manuremoving down river to Mississippi. Our grandfathers
chain-smoked Viceroys in the house& we developed asthma before vocabulary,read books & held our breath, spelledbut didn’t speak. In our bodies, humidity thickenedinto an argument with speech. When we joined
our fathers’ households they trashed our plastic bagspacked tight with medicine bottles & inhalerscurated over the years by our mothers, who smothered usour fathers said, mumbling something under their breathabout being a man. We were daughters. We were Black
& so, sons too. They vowed to make us stronger,big-lunged, lit our cigarettes, handed us grip-pleatedpaper bags in place of pills. In the 90s springtime,we suffered through neon particles…
You're reading a preview of
The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, September/October 2020