It’s Not Like Nikola Tesla Knew All of Those People Were Going to Die by Hanif Abdurraqib

It’s Not Like Nikola Tesla Knew All of Those People Were Going to Die

 

Everyone wants to write about god

but no one wants to imagine their god

 

as the finger trembling inside a grenade

pin’s ring or the red vine of blood coughed into a child’s palm

 

while they cradle the head of a dying parent.

Few things are more dangerous than a man

 

who is capable of dividing himself into several men,

each of them with a unique river of desire

 

on their tongues. It is also magic to pray for a daughter

and find yourself with an endless march of boys

 

who all have the smile of a motherfucker who wronged you

and never apologized. No one wants to imagine their god

 

as the knuckles cracking on a father watching their son

picking a good switch from the tree and certainly

 

no one wants to imagine their god as the tree.

Enough with the foolishness of hope and how it bruises

 

the walls of a home where two people sit, stubbornly in love

with the idea of staying. If one must pray, I imagine

 

it is most worthwhile to pray towards endings.

The only difference between sunsets and funerals

 

is whether or not a town mistakes the howls

of a crying woman for madness.