Part I
Birth
Umi gave birth to me
at home
She has a video
and every birthday
she makes me watch
When I was little
I would run away
Umi would laugh and say
Come here, boy
You gotta remember
where you came from!
She’d chase me around
that small apartment
and I’d cover my eyes and
pretend to be gagging
That’s nasty, Mama, I’d say
That’s life, Amal
You have to respect it
she’d say
Umi was in this inflatable pool
in the middle of our living room
with the midwife next to her
My father was holding the camera
She was taking deep fire breaths
eyes closed tight, not even screaming
almost praying
Then the midwife plunged
both her hands into the pool
And then
there I was rising out of water
Squirming little brown thing
barely crying
big eyes wide
as if I’d already done this before
as if I’d already been here before
Umi says
I was born with an
old, old soul
Old Soul
The thing about being born
with an old soul
is that
an old soul can’t tell you
all the things you weren’t supposed to do
all the things that went wrong
all the things that will make it right again
The thing about having an old soul
is that
no one can see that it’s there
hunched over with wrinkly brown skin
thick gray hair, deep cloudy eyes
that have already seen the past, present, and future
all balled up into a small universe
right here, right now
in this courtroom
Courtroom
I know the courtroom ain’t
the set of a music video, ain’t
Coachella or the BET Awards, ain’t
MTV, VH1, or the Grammys
But still
there’s an audience
of fans, experts, and judges
Eyes watching through filtered screens
seeing every lie, reading every made-up word
like a black hoodie counts as a mask
like some shit I do with my fingers
counts as gang signs
like a few fights counts as uncontrollable rage
like failing three classes
counts as being dumb as fuck
like everything that I am, that I’ve ever been
counts as being
guilty
Character Witness
We’re in the courtroom
to hear the jury’s verdict
after only a few hours of
deliberation
and Ms. Rinaldi, my art teacher
was a character witness
It was the first time
she saw me
in a suit and tie
like the one I was supposed to wear
to the art opening at the museum
Or the one I was supposed to wear
to my first solo show in the school’s gym
The suit I was supposed to wear
to prom, to my cousin’s graduation
to mosque with Umi
is the suit I wear to my first trial
It’s as if this event in my life
was something that was
supposed to happen all along
Gray Suit
Umi told me to wear a gray suit
becauseoptics
But that gray didn’t make me any less black
My white lawyer didn’t make me any less black
And words can paint black-and-white pictures, too
Maybe ideas have their own eyes
separating black from white as if the world
is some old, old TV show
Maybe ideas segregate like in the days of
Dr. King, and no matter how many marches
or Twitter hashtags or Justice for So-and-So
our mind’s eyes and our eyes’ minds
see the world as they want to
Everything already illustrated
in black and white
Anger Management
Did you ever see Amal get angry?
the prosecutor asked Ms. Rinaldi
It’s the most important question in my trial
Am I angryAm I violentAm I—
Objection, Clyde said
Sustained, the judge said
Did Amal ever display emotions that were—
Yes, Ms. Rinaldi said
That’s why I work so hard with Amal
To channel his anger into his art
And I know, I know
that right then and there
she didn’t even have to look my way
because she won’t see me
She’s never seen me
She only sees my paintings and drawings
as if me and what I create
are two different worlds
There’s a stone in my throat
and a brick on my chest
White Space
In art class
Ms. Rinaldi had said that
the white space on the page
is also part of our illustration
The white space on the page
also tells a story, is part of the big picture
I didn’t get what she was saying at first
Then she showed us this painting
An optical illusion, she called it
There was a white face
with eyes, a nose, and a mouth
against a black background
But when I looked sideways
or backward or upside down
there was a black face with
eyes, nose, and a mouth
against a white background
And it was wild how my eyes
played tricks on me like that
but it was my mind that
made sense of it all
It’s wild how our minds
can play tricks on us like that
White Space II
There were more witnesses
from East Hills
than from my side of the hood
of the tracks
of the border
of that invisible line
we weren’t supposed to cross
The couple who just moved in with the baby
who said
We tried so hard to build community
The kindergarten teacher who said
I’ve always been good to those
neighborhood kids
And the college kid who
recorded the whole thing
and said
I knew something was gonna go down
so I just picked up my phone
To call the police? Clyde asked
Nah, for social, the kid said
It was like a mob
an ambush
So I went live
And no, I’ve never seen them before
Then when Clyde asked
How long have you been in the neighborhood?
Just the weekend, visiting friends
the college kid said
I didn’t think it would blow up like this
That video made you pretty famous, huh?
The college kid laughed
and all I wanted to do was
drag him off that witness stand
But that would’ve looked bad
Really bad
The Thinker
I replay everybody’s testimonies
in my head
like a song on loop
Their words and what they thought
to be their truth