Labor Day

Listening to the screams that in

My neighborhood

Any other day would curdle the blood

Where rusted Chevy Impala’s backfiring would give reason to

Think otherwise

But now they’re celebrations

Joy standing in for murder

EVERYONE'S ALL BOJANGLES!

A stray water balloon splatters my window

A memorial on the corner for Albert “Mackie” Wilson

More beautiful to my aesthetic than any part of my heart

like found objects

Constructed with an imaginary sculpter’s eye

Yesterday’s Remy Martins,

green and orange melted candles

Stacked, just so.

Now only random discarded empty beer cans

I smell barbecue and someone’s getting a thrashing

For not listening to her mama

The cobalt plastic balls on her tightly wound pigtails

Reminds her just how much pain her mother is still capable of

Intermittent yelps bend around the block into my open window

Then I smell watermelon

I wonder which came first to me

The laughter

The watermelon

I sit in my apartment on this fine Labor Day

And I can tell the difference between the loudness of

The Blacks

The Whites

There was a book called something like

Why black folks tend to holler

Seems like everyone’s loud today

Everyone’s working real hard to remember

How to forget tomorrow