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Improv 2, Week 4

Affirmative Action

I’m caught in a bouquet of skin
and hair. Slaves, up and down
my blood like a boot in mud.
A constellation of almost haves

and never knews pointing north.
That’s why my childhood is a handful
of oceans and warped wood, shaken
like dice. Hopscotch lips, double ply

knees. On the one hand, sand and spit.
On the other, a coffle of spiders
eating under a split fist moon.
Free means artifice. Being free

means standing on a stanchion
of jive, black face or otherwise.

------------------------------------
-A MSN headline this morning read "Wizards G won't contest ban." I wish, just for the sake of skipping misreadings, that it read guard and not "G," which I read as "gangster" upon second and third reading. With this improv, I decided to try to write using only a quote, the story behind it, and my reading of both.

“Wizards G won’t contest ban”

We’re caught in a lexicon of slang
and skin. Why would a Wizard
contest a season long ban from
blacksetball? He’s a G on his off days,

flying between work and home,
mixes home speak with work jargon,
broke out an unloaded hand gun
(papa must have taught him right)

spoke gangsta with it turned to 9 o’clock
and said you don’t wanna hear that thing talk
with his eyes, until everyone whizzed into
innocent bystanders. He’s such G D Wizard

that he laughed the whole thing off
and won’t contest his ban from blacksetball.

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