POEM: melissa bell

melissa bell

I can’t decide
            whether to mention
            in the context of this poem

that I’m listening to Miles Davis
reduce a bunch of young stoned minds
            to
                their
                    constituent
                        parts
at the Fillmore East in the Year of our Lord 1970

I only bring it up because some-
times there are

                    moments

            brief

                inescapable

when someone holds up the mirror to your reality
reminds you that you

            YES            YOU

are part of this immense wash of struggling humanity
and that you

            YES            YOU

can, if you choose, stand straighter and walk taller

and really this poem isn’t about Miles Davis at all

it’s just that as a white man recently turned 40

watching these two icons of black feminism

                    all I can say is yes
                    and thank you
                    and I am on my front line
                    and they are on their front lines
                    and when I look to the

left                or                right

I want to see melissa and bell

and I want to hear the cry of Miles Davis’s trumpet

and

then

we

move

forward

8 November 2013
Oak Street

/ / /

This poem was inspired by listening to this and this.