"On the surface"


On the surface lines drawn

Define, divide, enclose, the now

This is my neighborhood

 

But how does this connect or separate us?

Each street dug into layers of time

Each road exposing the past, slicing up the future

 

This dirt holds the tears and bones

of our sisters and brothers

and with each new intersection old spirits are excavated

I hear their songs in pieces – I dare you to listen

 

All the while more layers lay down their bodies, bodies atop bodies, atop bodies, atop bodies

As you are re-routed through this city

apparitions iridescent swirl like gasoline in water

a collision of dreams in the wreckage of a collapsed over-pass

Each moment captured in the placement of a crossed road

 

Hopewell Indians meets Grand River.

 

12th street and Clairmont

 

Five days of riots

 

MLK meets Rosa Parks

 

I walk these streets

 

Searching

 

I turn on myself, claw at this chest, siphon courage, dig valleys, reveal my layers...

 

But I reject containment, I am in constant motion, I refuse to be defined solely by place

 

I am a work in progress, I cannot be still, I am a story with no beginning, a beat that reverberates, a page with no edges.

 

I was the only white kid on my block growing up, my friends put corn rolls in my hair and taught my how to reebok.

 

I feel my grandmother's Appalachian song in my throat, I breath mountains, hear the pines, I taste the tobacco fields in my lungs. I am a map, my body holds the key...