The Honeyboy Thug Paradox
There are two kinds of people
who walk in front of my car. There’re
the folks in the rich neighborhood, who jog around
like I’m not even there, like I couldn’t
kill them with a Prius. A horse
could kill you and this electric
car has 134 horses. Like I’m not even there.
The other kind of person who walks
in front of my car slows down to
saunter out, like they know I am
there, two fingers in a back pocket,
hair locked, pants like shackles
around their legs, but
they’ve renamed it for fashion,
like fuck you,
what are you going to do about it?
Like everything is a paradox they
live with, rename for fashion.
They get as close to my car as they can sometimes,
a dare, both of us
playing this show. If I could play the blues —
not just listen — if I could play the blues,
I’d play this
double strided gesture, into the road,
like fuck you, like watch this, like I know you’re there,
like a workshop in defiance, like
a blood moon, like two folks
supposedly on the same road, one of them
gliding around in a hybrid four door paid off car,
the other pushing out
wearing no payroll job like a fashion
I’m going to buy
and never wear quite right. I don't
know the salt and coffee ground soil of it,
living as I do right next
to the rich people we both can smell,
for whom this walk is meant
to speak to,
that blues song
they can’t even hear
though they bought the hip hop.
And they think we don’t notice
they are right there in front of us both.
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