an unrhymed blues, an unformed villanelle
by Sadie Ducet
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| Image source: Black Agenda Report |
Somewhere between his death
and the time it took
for outrage to find my
community we lost
an hour in the morning,
gained an hour in the afternoon
so the sun hangs, belting a
disbelieving blues.
I join the suburban ballet
shuttling kids
between activities and
lessons, between his death
and the time it took a young
writer
to ask me How do you write
about violence?
I don’t, I say. Not
violence per se. Not about it.
If there’s
violence seeping up out of the poem,
like night
coming on, that’s called losing an hour
in the
morning, gaining an hour after noon
in the slow descent. What I
mean is,
let me tell you about the
workouts at my gym:
between his death and the
time it took,
it’s all resistance. We push
and lift against ourselves
until we can’t go further,
holding the pose,
suspended for an hour in the
afternoon.
Teeth gritted til the count
is done,
that’s where I’m at, sidled
up
somewhere between his death
and the time it takes.
Between his death and the
time it takes.