The Boys Ran Past and the Flowers Never Grew Back

say a prayer for my father
who art not in heaven yet
who wore an afro like a
life vest in service of the akron
flood. It claim a family every
summer, every day in north
ohio be a coming of age story
be the beginning of a blood oath
you redeem in another part of
the lower forty-eight. praise be the zero
year, praise the artist that gets your
baby hair just right on the cover
every black boy gets a grand exit
they don't all get origin stories,
unless you count the first time
they got called a nigger. first time
their name is split over the molars
of a man in a uniform and spit out
like church wine. we hitchcock,
shoot our love scenes like murders,
and who among us ain’t dreamt of
their body draped in lights and making
a beautiful exit wound to a paying crowd?
they say all the brothas round my way
are great storytellers. no, we just
remember every color of the thing
that tried to kill us. want to hear a joke:
nobody I know lost their virginity
on lover's lane blvd, but the crips
used to set up shop there,
until someone decorated the street
with kevin's body. left him in the weeds
until the roses fermented
around his head. not funny? maybe
I gotta work on my timing. give me death or
give me death where my mama
doesn’t have to appear on cnn. we just
boys in the snapbacks, got just enough
spanish in our throat to flirt with rosa
up the block or tell rosa's brother
how the security guard at the mall
groped her when they said she
stole something. maybe a body without
puncture is too big of an ask. maybe we start smaller;
maybe we just want somebody to
see us without imagining a future
without us. guess our love scenes stay
murder. rosa told a boy he
was fine like denzel and she never came
back from the party. guess the flood
can claim anyone, guess I still ain't funny.
still alive though. still working on
my timing.