Measured
If space makes the pattern, her absence is filling a quota.
The president says,
“we’re a nation of laws” :—
The limerick
under her dreaming :—that lilting.
At seven
a Seuss-rhyme’s still funny.
And who’s to say wouldn’t have been, still, at 30?
The Sneetches or What Was I Scared Of?
She’s seven, asleep on the living room sofa.
] in amphibrachs—:
who hears her
breathing? [
If space makes the pattern, her absence is filling a quota.
This absence—: Aiyana.
But what was the officer scared of?
What reaches for him in the recesses of
his attention?
What formal suggestion of
darkness needs stagger
to formless?
If space makes the pattern—:
egregious—:
This grief in the rhythm of—: uplift too
graphic—:
a measure of struggle.
Which struggle with law
holds the dark in it? Keeps
the dark of
Quinletta, LaToya, Kimkesia, Oneka, Natasha, Breonna…
my still-breathing cousins
] your still-breathing cousins [
alive in it. Aiyana. Her breath in perfection—:
at seven—: This measure for measure on measure on measure
or else—:
︶
Law is dead, Aiyana. It never was
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