Paradise Island Bridge
for Anthenique Russell

i.
you get excited and you don’t know why
or become sad and not know why

when emotions are affected, are altered
by fragrances, colors, shades of colors

by light, dark or bright
by temperatures, warn or hot or cold
by fire and ice

you get excited or sad
by the slightest shift or that or this

we thirst or hunger
or desire to pee or shit

ii.
he does not seem drugged out
he seems drug free

instead of marijuana cigarettes
he smokes dicks,
gets high on these

dicks in his mouth, in his fists,
sufficient to please

iii.
used to be waiting places
for God to send me a lift

used to assume I was stranded
when already he’d supplied,
outfitted me with transportation

legs, feet,
carriage all the same, nonetheless

all I have to cross is a rock
7 miles wide, 21 miles long

not as if I had the whole continent
of Africa to traverse, to cross

to get home or to town

iv.
I keep wanting to pee

I’ve got something or something’s got me
I want something or something wants me

no end to wanting to pee pee pee

v.
amazing the distances feet can cover

one step at a time, one foot after another

arriving where I’m going, thinking
I got here far too quickly

on foot, I am never stuck in traffic
wasting time and wasting gas

vi.
I am interested in your identity
I am interested in locating you

like someone needing to/wanting to
pull off an assassination

necessary to locate you
before I pull the trigger

though it’s just a poem
I have to/want to write of you

though, instead of rifle with telescope
it is a pen in my fist

my eyes alone, unaided, to see you with
to see you through

nevertheless it’s necessary
to locate you to write a poem

locate you before I shoot off my mouth,
my verse, my worst shoot

vii.
what am I looking up or looking at

stars to look up at, words to look up
friends to look up

whom I’ve not seen in a long time
in prison or insane

viii.
stuff for the catwalk,
for the cat to pull off, to carry off

a cat brings a rat into the house
in its mouth

Versache fashion
for who will bite, for who will buy

ix.
white people thinking
you want to venture into their whirl
but you’re in the whirl already


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2008
Written between 7:30 p.m.
06.12.08 and 1:05 a.m. 07.12.08