By Lauren K. Alleyne
Wake up.
Let the morning
lighting
your four windows
rouse
you from sleep’s dark
chamber;
stumble, befuddled
into the
bathroom, so white
it’s
like you’re inside the moon.
Look in
the mirror—no don’t.
Just
leave. Get your body out
the door
and into the blue day.
Follow
the brown—sparrow,
maybe?—perched
on the rail
outside
your room like a guide.
Bring everything
already packed
in your
skin—a dead black boy
and his
free killer, his judge
and jury
of women, the six
not guilty bells clanging again
and
again in your weary ear.
No,
that’s your alarm; it’s time
to be a
poet. Bring your pen
and
notebook, your poet’s eye.
Try to follow
instructions:
Write what you see. It’s simple.
Walk
down the road, safe
in your
pack of poets, women,
white.
Do not write this
in your
notebook. Instead,
let your
eyes follow the lines
that run
everywhere—across
the
street, up the railings,
across
windows and shutters,
siding,
shingled rooftops—
parsing
the landscape into cells.
Write down
all the signs: Closed,
Peter’s Property Management,
Not for public use, These dunes
aren’t made for walking, stop.
Follow
the wind, ripe with salt
and already-sweaty
bodies.
See: a
pile of beached boats
like a
mass grave; a stone
wall
drowning while sleepy
dories
drift by; sun-bleached
stumps,
slowly going to rot;
an
American flag, a white boy
face
down on the sand, still
and
glistening with life.
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