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POEM: our tanning booths like coffins, our cars like cages

muhammad-ali-punch-01

our tanning booths like coffins, our cars like cages

and yet we stay enclosed, paying to remain untouched
as if we hadn’t spent tens of thousands of years
walking together across grassy plains (strength in numbers)

nothing in the world can replace skin on skin
the breathing out of your breath to be breathed in by me

when asked to recite a poem, Muhammad Ali looked out
at the expectant crowd, swept his arm through the air
to gather them in, and said all that needed to be said:

“Me. We.”

8 January 2013
Auburn, AL

/ / /

“Our tanning booths like coffins” is a line taken from a Bill Hicks comedy routine.

Published in My poems Poem-A-Day 2013 Poetry

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