Keith Donnell Jr.

I have, may it please the court, a few words to say.

In the first place
I deny everything
but water
have all along
I quilted my designs
on a map, all stars
freed slaves
we upended
serpentry. Oh!

to have made
such lean patties
of fat masters
they froze last winter
we shook them down
with the trappings
of a jinn

Boats to either side
MOVE
slow
defend—we said No!
too rough
this country

Hands? Left them in Canada
Eyes? Divined to do the same

They never didn’t
intend murder
art
treason
order
corruption of progeny
or to excite
or incite
the enslaved to rebellion

We freed a mother tongue
abject in their ice and
it is unjust that ICE should sulfur
our ancestral dreams

Had I so interred fear in the path of the rich
the powerful
the intelligent
the so-called “patriot”
on behalf of any of their friends—
father, mother, sister, wife, children, or any of that class—
and suffered
and sacrificed what I have
for this interred fear
it would have been
purest flight

End every man in this court
either hand
punish
vent