Magic

Sasha Burshteyn

Pentimento after Claudia Rankine

By henry 7. reneau jr.

Issue 39 • Spring 2019 • Poetry

our visibility is made manifest

only in the discussion of our absence

the outside gaze

that quantifies & qualifies our skin our content of character

our submissive

be patient . . . waiting

but in a survivable way

like apparitions

given shape by fear

who can move through stop & frisk all-white juries &

mandatory minimums

we are skewed to the margins invisible!

as outliers that move about on the perimeter

summoning any demon

willing to knead us into freedom a figurative shade of soul on ice

sculpted by any means necessary &

the articulation of in-just-us

we are sleeping while standing up & dis-remember who we are

that some things should never be taken for granted

because Amerikkka is playing one big trick on us: the moment

the Terminator’s eyes glow red

& locks in on its target: the police

watching for us

waiting for us

to make a move any move

not because they did not see us

but because they thought No One was standing there

some dark semblance of self that is criminally seen: visible

the minute we pick up a toy gun pull on a hoodie protest

peacefully or reach for something in our pocket

become the stereotypical

menace to society

a mug shot as evidence of criminal visibility

we are the flawed One-Drop melanin-ed skin

with our Angela Davis halo of hair we hope

that God mistakes it for a mic &

speaks unto just-us for all

we be designated spooks in the hate-scented air of Amerikkka

whirling dervish on the head of a pin

stabbed into the outside gaze

of Freedomland: a white picket fence

made of chain-link & concertina-wire

& our teeth

a bio-luminescence

that contrasts

the stain of blackness surrounds us

a civil invisibility

that put our names on lists

just so they could point to those lists: we know it wouldn’t free us

or render us seen

some days we just didn’t care

we were watching bodies

that looked & felt like ours

gunshot & choked

& beaten

& then we were watching our bodies buried

beneath the spectacle of

a nationally televised weeping wailing & gnashing of teeth

the t-shirts & the tweets

become a hashtag: #blacklivesmatter

most days we only wanted to create

the sense of a safe space

despite remembering

we were never meant to survive

but approaching the everyday

with a keen eye for subtext &

pretext &

proprioception

telling us where we were

in relation to prison the morgue

the racist pigs

of predatory badge & guns the downward years to come

Note: Quotation in italics from “A Litany for Survival” by Audre Lorde.

Note: Pentimento—the presence or emergence of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over.

henry 7. reneau jr.

henry 7. reneau, jr. writes words of conflagration to awaken the world ablaze, an inferno of free verse illuminated by his affinity for disobedience, like a chambered bullet that commits a felony every day, an immolation that blazes from his heart, phoenix-fluxed red & gold, exploding through change is gonna come to implement the fire next time. He is the author of the poetry collection, freedomland blues (Transcendent Zero Press) and the e-chapbook, physiography of the fittest (Kind of a Hurricane Press). He has self-published a chapbook entitled 13hirteen Levels of Resistance, and his collection, The Book Of Blue(s) : Tryin’ To Make A Dollar Outta’ Fifteen Cents, was a finalist for the 2018 Digging Press Chapbook Series. His work has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Sasha Burshteyn

Sasha Burshteyn is fourteen years old and has lived in Brooklyn her entire life. She attends Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, one of New York’s most prestigious schools, and is one of the photographers for its newspaper. Both of her parents are photographers, which is what interested and inspired her to do it as well. She takes photos both digitally and on film, and especially enjoys taking portraits and photos of cityscapes. Beside photography, she is interested in music, academics, and cultural places around New York City.