Reparations Metric: Reverse Stump Speech for Courting the Black Vote
Please believe, nobody’s out here looking
for a promotional incentive
to be your bestie. Nobody’s asking
you to slash our retail rates
to reasonable margins, & call it
a blowout sale
though — that might very well
cast my ballot. Nobody needs
your high yield guarantee on every
deposit, your air mail rebate
for any immoderate purchases made
though, given my therapeutic
spending patterns, these formulas could
only help circulate the dollar.
Admittedly, I haven’t apportioned this
a great deal of thought. Accidental
as lighting, these gestures of redress
sailed to me! As two spiral
columns of wind. As oxygen
molecules oaring / rows of trees
into bibles / into money. O Milk &
Honey Candidate, calculating suitor
of the black & woke vote,
you can’t just soundbite flesh
from the bones of a measure
& expect to win our hearts
come election day. Come Corrector,
lovelies. Don’t just tell me
you’d appoint a commissioner
to form a taskforce to
examine the issue. Appeal to me
in coded specificity
targeting bedrock — the lithified
blue-black base —
until you actually believe
a backlash / can be un-
wound. That only kin of bondage
can fell a link between
the president’s twitter feed / & your
four-year bout with anxiety.
I see you, with your figurative skin
in the game. You wear that
bruise! Let it rise up, through
your cadences. In your dailiness!
as the focus-grouped flag pin
that pricks each morning
when you smooth yourself
in the mirror. A uniform
dawning you don at televised
campaign rallies. Amen!
& should you win, & win again —
it better be
the wounded-brick color scheme
you use to redecorate
the Office —
a tone which, builds &
braces the house, without
acknowledgment. Joists it
safely above mounting water.
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