Perpetual Resin: A Cento, and: First Black Cop Bop
2022; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/thr.2022.0011
ISSN1939-9774
Autores Tópico(s)Latin American and Latino Studies
ResumoPerpetual Resin: A Cento, and: First Black Cop Bop Sylvia Jones (bio) Perpetual Resin: A Cento For a gripping narrative that was itself perpetually givenbecause the day demanded moneythe bill arrives as a eulogy: itemizedwith the ancient genitals blacked outour faces a chocolate bar, facing the nightbut when I need to die, who will light the fire?night-blooming flower being pried open in the morninglike seeing like things the samedim through the misty panes and thick green lighta harpoon in my flesh I noddedto shave your face you took off your wigzigzagging throughwho wakes first, and from which dreamis Paradise an island of perfection?the house bristlesthe future burststhere is a ghostits height pierces the low cloudmy steps toe to heel to toe counting the lengthsof air from each palmwith girls for hollow stamens ribbed with joystwo cesarean scarstakin guitar lessons andwhat ceases to tick just before dawn cannot be my heartbeing hung as in we grow as we arebut can’t I imagine her high, thin song when she returns from the hunt [End Page 59] First Black Cop Bop At Patapsco State Park with Frederick Douglassmining lithium out of fossilizedBeanie Babies, in the switchbacks off the Chevrolettrail. Ever colder a slippery slope takes hold atop aludicrous anachronism. Gaddafiopens an envelope and I ran like a cheetah with the thoughts of an assassin into a mosh pitat a house show in ShockoeBottom where Harriet Tubman begetsan image of Andrew Jacksondonning a neck tattoo of Lil Waynewith the locks pulled back, hence I ran like a cheetah with the thoughts of an assassin All mystery, flattened and sandeddown into stereotypical jive, broken windowsspeaks of blight. Me?I’m in a different roomtrying to interview Abner Louimafor a true crime podcast I ran like a cheetah with the thoughts of an assassin [End Page 60] Sylvia Jones sylvia jones lives in Baltimore. She is a 2021–22 Stadler Fellow and serves as an associate poetry editor for west branch. Her work has appeared in Poet Lore, Shenandoah, The Santa Clara Review, Windfall Room, diagram, and elsewhere. She earned her mfa from American University in Washington, DC. Footnotes Sources: Lyn Hejinian, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, D. A. Powell, Howard Nemerov, Lynne Thompson, Jacques J. Rancourt, Donald Revell, Roxane Beth Johnson, Fanny Howe, Wilfred Owen, Ishmael Reed, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Geoffrey Brock, Roger Robinson, Kay Ryan, Gwen Head, Donté Clark, Henry Dumas, Layli Long Soldier, Graham Foust, Owen Dodson, Camille Guthrie, Reginald Lockett, Robin Morgan, Victoria Chang, and Robert Whitehead. Notes: The italicized lines in “First Black Cop Bop” are from “N.Y. State of Mind” by Nas from his debut studio album Illmatic (Columbia Records, 1994). The Bop is a poetic form coined by Afaa M. Weaver. Copyright © 2022 Sylvia Jones
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