Testify: poems

I

Loud Looks 15

Washing Palms 17

Aubade 18

Little Fires Left by Travelers 20

Get Your Head out of the Gutter 21

Luxury Items 22

As if I can unchisel pain, 23

Feels like Rain 24

Baubles 25

Entreaties 26

Heading Down 28

Me, The Boondocks. Her, South Park. 30

Indefensible 31

Best Act like You Know 32

Bad Son 33

Mic Drop 34

I'll Leave Your Ass Here 36

II

"Are You Ready to Help the Parents of This Child in Their Duty as Christian Parents?" 39

Of Wasp Hum and Catacombs 40

I'm My Father's Name 41

Lost Side of Loss 42

Keeping It Real 43

First Time I See My Father's Blood Cleaned 44

Fishing 46

This Poem Isn't Black 47

Vertigo 48

Give Me My Mama Back 49

Whose Little Boy Are You? 50

My Brother Smoked Rocks with a Quran at His Feet 52

Love's Austere and Lonely Offices 54

Never Left My Name 56

We Had the Second Biggest Gymnasium in the Nation 57

Testify 59

III

Goodnight, Baby 63

Crown Hill Cemetery 66

Bullets Ain't Got No Names on Them 67

What I Wish My Mother Had Told My Father 68

I Can Run Five Miles but Can't Get to the Other Side of My Mind 70

Is That My Father? 71

I'm Suspicious 72

All Is Laughter 74

Knee Deep 76

Pray to This 77

Cripple and the Crackhead 86.