Lone wolf narrative

Take your teeth off
           the light switch. America, I'll darken
                your face by holding it
                         between my thighs. America, grief
                     your only stable
                                         currency. When a white boy shoots
                     up the strip mall where my mother
                               waxes white women, she calls me
from the back room        backlit
           by our altars: oranges scarred,
seedless & photos of ghosts
                    taken by smoke. She tells me
           to marry soon: when the right man comes, run
the risk of wreckage: love him into
                               leaving his country. This one:
                     a history colonized by holes. The news
           spews tonight's casualties: motor
                     accident on the highway. Another country
defrosted by bombs. Another son
           kills his mother with his father's
                                         gun. No mention
                                                   of the mother's race
                               though I've seen her face
                     is mine. There's no disowning the white
                               from bone, your body from the boat
           waiting in its blood. When another news-anchor
                     says acted alone, my mother says
                                                   all knives
                                         come from a drawer. All widows
                               come from wars. At work
                     my mother cuts bangs into a woman's blonde
                                         son, asks him what he wants
                               to be when he grows up       policeman
                                         soldier       at school       the teachers teach him to shoot
                                                   for the stars
                                         to constellate
                                                   a body with bullets
                                                             & baptize himself       white
                                                   in the light.

- K Ming Chang (from wildness)

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