All of the black boys finally stopped packing switchblades

to punk shows ever since the summer of ‘98 when
danny went into the pit and got his front teeth
divorced from the rest of his mouth by the fist
of some white boy from the side of town
where no one buries a body that came into the world
after they did and no one ever has to swallow
their own blood and pray that it will keep them
fed until morning
so danny told us that he was going to
go home with someone’s teeth even if they weren’t
the ones that he came here with
because how many things have we boys had ripped
from our mouths and never replaced by anyone?
how much of our language has been pulled over the tongues
of everyone but us?
reparations were sought in dark alleys with a blade sharp
enough to scare a jaw open and a prayer out of a sinner’s
body which explains how the white boy wept
and called his father’s name when being pressed
into the brick with danny’s foot against his neck while
we watched until danny finally let the boy
go and we ran back out east towards our homes and maybe
it was the way the rain howled or maybe where
we come from we see everything drowning in red anyway
or maybe there is no other way to explain the haste with which I make
my pockets barren before leaving the house
even today
or why my wife needs a bigger purse to carry such weight
for the both of us
but when the police came for us that night
we did not hear a sound until danny’s blade fell out his pocket
and the bullets that followed
because I guess anything can be a gun if the darkness surrounding it
is hungry enough
or at least that’s what I’ve been told when
the bodies of black boys thrash against what
little life they have left tethering them to the earth
and isn’t that what we’ve always been fed? that it is
just like the nighttime
to rename everything that moves
into a monster?