with that ass, they won’t look at your eyes
after Mark Bradford
because eventually everything is reduced
to abstraction like too loud song becoming
a blues note—a footnote for the news then static
then dynamic because eventually everything
is reduced abstract like blackness becomes black
caricature like a too-tight glove courtroom antics
cue the greek chorus of anti-semitic semantics
because eventually everything is re-juiced
electrified abs track & field niggers high jump
while black blurs master hurdles did massa say
how high? how feet how knuckle how buttock how thigh
become bluestreak how running while black becomes
literal not abstract like running for hobby
pale knobby knees literal like bullet then blurrr—
then static
by t’ai freedom ford
because eventually everything is reduced
to abstraction like too loud song becoming
a blues note—a footnote for the news then static
then dynamic because eventually everything
is reduced abstract like blackness becomes black
caricature like a too-tight glove courtroom antics
cue the greek chorus of anti-semitic semantics
because eventually everything is re-juiced
electrified abs track & field niggers high jump
while black blurs master hurdles did massa say
how high? how feet how knuckle how buttock how thigh
become bluestreak how running while black becomes
literal not abstract like running for hobby
pale knobby knees literal like bullet then blurrr—
then static
by t’ai freedom ford
t’ai freedom ford is a New York City high school English teacher and Cave Canem Fellow. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Drunken Boat, Sinister Wisdom, No, Dear, The African American Review, Vinyl, Poetry and others. Her work has also been featured in several anthologies including The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. t’ai lives and loves in Brooklyn, but hangs out digitally at: shesaidword.com.
