Punching the Air: Part I

Umi was in this inflatable pool
in the middle of our living room
with the midwife next to her

We’re in the courtroom
to hear the jury’s verdict
after only a few hours of
deliberation

Maybe ideas segregate like in the days of
Dr. King, and no matter how many marches
or Twitter hashtags or Justice for So-and-So

our mind’s eyes and our eyes’ minds
see the world as they want to
Everything already illustrated
in black and white

Objection, Clyde said

Sustained, the judge said

Then she showed us this painting
An optical illusion, she called it

I replay everybody’s testimonies
in my head
like a song on loop

Chiseled bronze
perfectly frozen in time
like some god
stripped of his power
or a fallen angel
cast into this hell

But he is part of the white space
on my page
where the charcoal and ink
only graze the edges of his world

My art teacher of all people should know
I could never make a painting
with the colors of mangled flesh
of broken bone, of bruised skin

out of someone’s face

The prosecutor, with his fancy words
his hard evidence
wrote the script, directed the scene
cast just the right actor
to play this kid from the hood
who beat up a white kid really bad

Umi tells me to pray, head bowed
submitting to that higher power who
holds the puppet strings

sit in those classes
sit on those front stoops
sit on those trains

The prosecutor had to prove
that I grabbed my skateboard
and swung it at his head
when his DNA wasn’t even on it
so Clyde got it reduced to

one count of
aggravated assault and battery

So I turned down the plea deal
and pleaded not guilty

Because Clyde said it was self-defense

And all you trying to do is
steal the ball, intercept, block
and go home
go home

Uncle Rashon’s furrowed brows are like trips to that
book vendor on the corner

I know he has conspiracy theories
about this whole thing

We have a zero-tolerance policy, Mr. Figueroa
said when my mother came up to the school

Grandma calls me Master Amal
because she says
I am the master of my own destiny
I am the master of my own fate
I am the master of my body, mind, and spirit

The tombs is where we leave
our bodies so that our souls
can burn in an inferno

It’s shock, that’s all... Shock
Grandma had said on the night of my arrest
when I stared out into a void
not here, somewhere over there

It’s like I’m meat or wheat
Made into a burger or deli slices
Made into pasta or bread
Processed
Not the boy I was before the machine
Before the breaking down and pulling apart
Before the adding and taking away

I was made for easy, fast consumption
Like food chains in the hood
Umi said don’t go there
That you are what you eat

Bail money means going home
but it’s like renting time

Bail money made me feel as if
there was justice

On the day of my conviction
I memorize
my inmate number
my crime
my time

And I am shackled
again—Maybe these are the
same chains that bind me

to my ancestors

We’re moved from
the county jail
and onto a bus
and from the bus
we’re going to the
juvenile detention facility

I overflow
I can’t hold it in
I won’t hold them in
my rhymes
my words
my truth
are like a tsunami

How did they trick the untrickable ones?
How did they bewitch the natural mystics?

I’ll tell you of a time when I looked back
The lash on my back
The ax on my feet
Making it hard for me to walk a straight line
And with my mouth agape I vibrate
Instead of scream I can’t cry
Wishing to die