Table of Contents
Smokey 3
LA Police Chief Daryl Gates Dead at 83 4
What Spells Trouble 5
Crips & Bloods 6
Delfonic 7
Somebody told me we got LA 8
Tar Baby 9
Prince George's County 10
Line of Reason 11
Picturing My Father Running Anywhere (& For What?) 12
The Authority 13
How often I've turned to Latasha Harlins, who would have been 43 this July 14
Jailbird Blues 15
No More Birminghams 16
Midnight Special 17
The Snooty Fox 18
As in … Afro-Pessimism? 19
Dog Star Rising 20
Place Your Bets 21
Grief 22
On Becoming River Rat, Fat-Tongued and/or Finding Your Once Pretty Body at the Park, Full of Holes 23
Eye Witness 24
Other Women's Children 25
Don't Forget You(r) Lunch 26
Poem in which i attempt to explain to my sons … 28
What Was Ocean 29
The Whipping 30
The Wall 31
The Curiosities 32
Like a Natural Man 33
Worry the Rosemary 34
"Young Hearts, Run Free" ('76) 35
When Miss Lucy Sings 36
Black Dragons 39
This Bitter Earth 41
Nothing But a Man 42
Featuring Lonette Mckee as Sister 43
Fred Williamson Stars as "The Hammer" 44
Gator Purify 45
Black Dragons 46
Pacman 48
Another Epitaph for Nino 49
The Human Tornado 50
Raising Hell 51
Waiting 52
Priest and the Revolution 53
DeBarge 54
Mystery Woman Speaks 30 Years Later 55
Doo-Wop 56
Black Diaspora 57
Strawberry 58
Other Acts of Terror 59
The Midsection 60
If not as in a wilderness, then 61
Women Named Barbara 62
Between Work 63
Estrella @ Noon 64
Affirmative Action Babies 65
Acknowledgments 67
