June Jordan

Dedicated to Myriam Díaz-Diocaretz
1
I turn to my Rand McNally Atlas.
Europe appears right after the Map of the World.

What will we do
when there is nobody left
to kill?
*

How do we come to be here next to each other
in the night
Where are the stars that show us to our love
inevitable

I never thought I’d keep a record of my pain
or happiness
like candles lighting the entire soft lace
of the air

Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear
my head about this poem about why I can’t
go out without changing my clothes my shoes
my body posture my gender identity my age

A few years back and they told me Black
means a hole where other folks
got brain/it was like the cells in the heads
of Black children was out to every hour on the hour naps

no more the chicken and the egg come
one of them
before the other
both

Dear Sirs:
I have been enjoying the law and order of our
community throughout the past three months since
my wife and I, our two cats, and miscellaneous

Washington, D.C.
At least it helps me to think about my son
a Leo/born to us
(Aries and Cancer) some

Poem for Sriram Shamasunder
And All of Poetry for the People
It’s a sunlit morning
with jasmine blooming

I
honey people murder mercy U.S.A.
the milkland turn to monsters teach
to kill to violate pull down destroy

Dedicated to the 600,000 Palestinian men, women, and children who lived in Lebanon from 1948-1983.
I didn’t know and nobody told me and what
could I do or say, anyway?
They said you shot the London Ambassador