who will prosecute
the wind’s unconstitutional
surveillance of skin?
hands up if they told you
snowflakes speak
for diversity.
*
I held my breath
like a basketball passing
through the projects
to pan-am plaza.
my sister concealed steel
blades, a leopard-skin
leotard, stretched thin
as child support
after the check
for lessons cleared.
from the penalty box,
mom starred
passages from my posse
don’t do homework
as hannah crash-landed
lutz, axle, & salchow—
two studies in kerrigan
courage, both bruised
by the same goon.
*
I only chewed ice,
cut my teeth
at the makeshift arcade
by the locker room.
my world was flattening
dollars wadded
like donated clothes,
cursing the change
machine’s discriminating ethos,
a crudeness confused
for sophistication.
tokenless, I lost
myself in gameplay
demos, the blue screen’s
looping propaganda:
winners don’t do drugs.
*
explain kayfabe: the story
I tried to keep straight
when I grew addicted
to wwf wrestlefest,
the cabinet that beckoned me
to inhabit the badge worn
by big boss man, a correction
officer who made opponents cry
rodney, his long black night-
stick the sad advantage
I needed with lack burning
a hole in my pocket.
*
it’s a crime that no one notices:
the contrast of white on white,
the figure 8 an imitation of the infinite
interrupted by a stray puck, hard & dark
as those who have drummed more
into me than they could ever scare out.
Image By: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Ice_hockey_puck_in_broken_plexiglass.jpg/1200px-Ice_hockey_puck_in_broken_plexiglass.jpg