<div class="line">Barberry bushes have been trampled all day</div>
<div class="line">and some boys along the creek</div>
<div class="line">pretending it is the barbed wire of an Indian prison</div>
<div class="line">lay prone clutching nickel-plated revolvers</div>
<div class="line">imaginary of course. Unlike our Reservations</div>
<div class="line">about choosing the wrong side of this battlefield.</div>
<div class="line">Cowboys gallop red across the stripped horses</div>
<div class="line">of their pink legs embarrassing Indians</div>
<div class="line">into a shirtless whoop of bows and</div>
<div class="line">arrows falling dead BANG BANG</div>
<div class="line">barbs fired from prepubescent lips.</div>
<div class="line">Swimming in the music of a clear October</div>
<div class="line">morning eagles handcuff the sun</div>
<div class="line">bald as our understanding</div>
<div class="line">of war never ending ever was.</div>


Invoking the Muse in Cell Block B

Till She Appeared and the Soul Felt its Worth

Fall

<div class="line"><em>Boys like us don’t make national news.</em></div>
<div class="line">That’s what we’d tell each other, fleeing</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">the long blue arms of police LEDs.</div>
<div class="line">Our hightop Reeboks kissed gravel</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">miles of Central Pennsylvania Street. Us</div>
<div class="line">not old enough to have kissed a lover. <em>Boys</em></div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">like us, cops shoot &amp; ask questions never,</div>
<div class="line">we laughed. We ran. We laughed. We hollered</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">“Pig!” as if it was just another pickup game</div>
<div class="line">of basketball on the blacktop. We were so young—</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">how young is too young to teach a boy never</div>
<div class="line">turn his index finger &amp; thumb into the hammered steel</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">of a gun. <em>You might die.</em> I breathe for decades,</div>
<div class="line">older &amp; older &amp; now when I close my eyes</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">I can see Jason Pero isn’t with us boys—us running</div>
<div class="line">from cops. Jason is at home. <em>He was a teddy bear</em>,</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">said his grandpa. <em>He teased his little nephews once</em></div>
<div class="line">in a while but that was the meanest part he had.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">Jason Pero is in his front yard making the best</div>
<div class="line">of Bad River Reservation, turning porch boughs</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">into a drum set, each stick cracking stained wood.</div>
<div class="line">He imagines making it all the way to high school</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">drumline. &amp; here comes that cop with report</div>
<div class="line">“of a man carrying a knife.” &amp; here is Jason drumming.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">&amp; here there will be no justice for death, no video</div>
<div class="line">evidence of Jason’s dying. Just this one that plays out</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">endlessly in my head. The greatest horror</div>
<div class="line">writers know it’s worse when you can’t see the monster:</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">jaws that catch, claws that bite, hidden in darkness.</div>
<div class="line">In Onondaga, our clan mother says kahséhtha’ <em>I hide</em></div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">something akweriákon <em>in my heart</em>. But tonight, I am done</div>
<div class="line">with hiding. Jason Pero was shot once in the shoulder</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">&amp; once in the heart. &amp; my heart beats faster the longer</div>
<div class="line">I sleep. The longer I close my eyes. The longer we hide.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/KingsleyBody.mp3"></audio></figure>

Shopping Cart
items

August 20, 2018FallBenjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley

Sign up for our Newsletter

August 20, 2018FallBenjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley

Related

I Can’t Close My Eyes Without Seeing Jason Pero’s Body by Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley