January/February 2026

You have to imagine it:

Who said you were too dark/too
Large? Too queer/too loud?

Who said you were too poor/
Too strange? Too fat?

You have to imagine it:

Who said you must keep quiet?
Who heard your story, then
Rolled their eyes?

Who tried to change your name
To invisible?

You’ve got to imagine:

Who heard your name
And refused to pronounce…

It’s complicated, my relationship status
with progress. I often prefer

the “before” picture. The future
is where I’m going only because

I have no choice, because time
moves in one direction, dragging

a bit of itself behind like meat.
An unseen hand keeps

tugging it—time’s rabbit leg,
time’s hunk of red venison—

just out of…

My mother kept a chest of letters
my father sent me from prison.
She didn’t let me see them
until I was old enough to read
profanity. Every letter, written
in all caps with blue ink
blotting out every other word.
He signed each letter: Love,
Shy Boogie. That was the name
he claimed he got from the Bronx,
known back then as the Boogie Down…