Under a white popping sky, constellations
buckle together. Here off a blacktop road, I must
ask my mind: how many can’t see redshift starlight
as they breathe behind twenty-five-to-life metal
or beneath a roof of buckling pollution?
After I read and wrote and screamed, it’s time
I breathe — claim my Milky Way view
like the green in my pocket.
I return to read an author who doesn’t mirror my melanin.
Yesterday at dusk on a hotel bed, I visualized
pickpocketing America’s fat body — dead
presidents got thrown into a furious fire.
On this bed I paid to occupy, I’ll dream a new reality
where my son’s heartbeats vibrate in a zip code
that won’t throw his chambers into a cell or casket.
Photons within one galactic neighborhood
pour into our terrestrial home of heartbeats
and gunshots. How many can’t see shifting beauty,
only know horror in a neighborhood with prison bars?
Tonight I gazed at a California sky’s familiar shine.
Keith Gaboury
Keith Mark Gaboury, 35 years old, lives in Oakland, California. His preferred pronoun is he/him. Keith works as a preschool teacher. Through teaching workshops, a local poet who Keith admires is Kim Addonizio. She financially supports herself through her poetry.