velocity of a soft body hitting the world
EXT. BIRMINGHAM NEW STREET – DOORS – DAY
I stepped in; my hands hovering
over him: a hot car battery
I couldn’t touch. I stepped forward
for the feral love we could become
repeating my mantra of it’s not okay.
what he said to you, it’s not okay.
hoping that, if listened to, he’d let go.
- call me a black bastard again!
crack in the door of his throat
revealing the boy within: larynx
twitching with pitchy reluctance.
so close and I couldn’t. but this
wasn’t about me. these words;
these woods; the ruptured
dam of a man that drink releases
or what heat does: thick spit clogging
a drunk dwarf’s eye as he’s dragged
by the collar of his coat; clang of bone
on a metal post; the skull shaking
like an ugly gong that rang along that
busy, narrow street. no, this was time
returned to its reckless impediment:
seconds wound up, hand against hand,
to strike with mechanical efficiency.
