FINAL POEM FOR A KING

I used to be friends with a man who raped a woman

whom he told was too dark for anyone to believe

though he himself was no lighter than the blackhole

he had become which means he did not believe

himself thus hated himself and will hate beyond himself

though he did not know it at the time that to rape

a Black woman was to hate the world and to be dead

to want to be dead to need to be dead because to be

born from one’s unfounded hatred is to be wholly

and forever zero to the white meat and she

the woman who shared her story had been for years

holding on to his violence his hatred toward her

handed off like a clue as in “What do you know

of yourself?” as in “My hatred birthed me, now so will you.”

I often think of that woman, whose name

was left unshared and I wouldn’t share it

even if I knew it—nor will I share his name for the law

he claims to hate for its whiteness has protected

his black revulsion, his silence an empire’s

gift to its willing slave—and I wonder how much

room there is in the world for her and how much

room have others taken from her and how her story

did not stop those who heard it from, months later,

sitting in a room with her rapist, smiling, allowing,

and how the rooms of their hearts had no space

for her either, though hadn’t she taken a step past

their thresholds, been invited in, not knowing

she had entered through the back door like a secret?

In undergrad, an acquaintance I had grown to love

told me her father had used the times of her mother’s

absence to—

I don’t know why she trusted me

to tell me this so casually in a burger joint.

And I remember wanting her to cry

because I wanted to cry but could not cry

and why could I not cry and how else do I

show her that I hear I care I believe her and she

thanked me for listening while I sat petrified

in half-smile like a delinquent who committed

a crime and almost got away thinking more

of myself than of her as is the way of men

who want most to be the unasked-for

white knight in an already-fought war.

His childhood friend, a teenage girl

when he was six. Their older cousin, fifteen,

and they were eight. His babysitter, her saying,

“Keep this between us.” Their aunt’s best friend

while the aunt ran an errand: “Girl, of course

I’ll watch him. He my lil husband.” His neighbor

who put his hand between his legs.

His teacher whom he impregnated at fifteen.

A woman his father paid and watched as they did it—

Adults in my life have come to me as the children

they were when touched too soon and asked me

if they did something wrong. I say “no” and “therapy”

and “You didn’t deserve . . .” They ask me if I’d ever

been touched too soon. I say, “I don’t remember.”

No woman in my family will tell me

what happened and I can’t tell them

I already know had been in the other

room sometimes when it happened

heard the slaps come down heard stop

ring out from my ______ heard the names

heard the threats heard the quiet after

heard about the boy who pushed

my ______ off the bus about the partner

who cut my _______ across the eye the one

neighbor carefully walking up the stairs

and my _______ running to the front door

to lock it only to have to run to lock the back

door too and the knob jiggling, jiggling, ji—

If I could kill them all, God: know I would.

I’m no saint. I too have wielded a knife

to execute someone I love more than myself

because a child’s rage is mercurial.

I could remember that feeling, that gilded heat.

If I could kill them all, God. Know I would

take my time. Would make a game of it. Often,

I sit daydreaming of hunting down rapists

in abandoned factories. Call me Jigsaw. I’ll nod

my wooden head, a yes they never saw coming.

If I could kill them all, God, know I would.

Just call them all Isaac and I’ll make them my sons.

If I could kill them all, God. Know I wouldn’t

even wash my hands after. Wouldn’t need permission.

When I was younger, I had a recurring dream

of an elderly man in a wheelchair tickling me

until it was not fun anymore. The dream stopped

some years into adolescence. I read somewhere

that repression leaves unlocked doors in the mind

you think are locked or merely empty rooms. Signs

that these rooms exist may never appear. I hear

nothing when I close my eyes, alone with myself,

and see the entrance into me expectantly open,

empty halls in memories where doors are blown

off hinges, rooms evacuated, torn white fabric draping

from the walls. There’s a condemned house in me.

I look for him in every sun-filled room,

but every beam of light and room is him.