for ______
Truth be told, this time
I didn’t even bother
to look up his name, let alone
say it. I didn’t
double check
whether that blue knee
was pressed
into a black neck
or a black back; I knew
black someplace
and knew enough.
What I don’t know
is the flowers: will they bury him
with peonies? Something
standard, like roses?
Maybe they will shroud him
in touch-me-nots
bloomed too late,
scientific name impatiens.
Someone, I hope,
will say a prayer.
Perhaps his mother,
in a long black shawl
and the plastic pearls
he bought for her
at the second-grade
book fair. Did they have
plastic pearls that year?
Did he have a mother?
What about a dark
frowning woman
he called Auntie
though she was no one’s
sister by blood? Will she
check her lipstick
in her pocket mirror
before leading the mourners
through “Lift Every Voice,” cracking
as she always does
in the second verse?
Maybe he had a sister.
Or a daughter. Or a niece.
Perhaps a nephew
with a B+ in calculus
or a second-cousin
learning to rollerblade.
Will his old high school friends come,
unearth that story
from senior year
when the cops let them go
with a warning
and they took the time,
through all the heavy
breathing, to think
they were invincible?
What would he think
of all the burning?
Is it bright enough?
Would he scoff
at the fact that this was all
they could muster up for him?
Maybe he would think
of Baldwin, laugh
that the next time
is now. That laugh,
would it be his father’s?
And did he even like Baldwin
or did he find him too precious,
too verbose? Maybe he wasn’t
a big reader. Maybe he was
coming from a library.
Or a fast food joint. Corporate meeting.
Barber shop. Toys R Us.
Nail salon. Al-Anon.
Jury duty. Maybe
he was coming from the store.
Maybe they had been
out of milk
and he had planned
to go back
tomorrow.
–
Aaron Magloire hails from Queens, NYC, and is a sophomore at Yale University, where he’s had the indescribable pleasure of studying poetry under Emily Skillings and Claudia Rankine. Today, his favorite bird is the quetzal, but no promises about tomorrow.