Four Poems – Julian Randall

Fuck Tha Police: a Family History in my Father’s voice

I overheard your mother saying 
she more hood than me
fuck that.
now your mother she from 
Washington Heights in the 60’s
she season all her food 
with things that sound like blood
but   she don’t really know
what blood sounds like.
She’s never seen an entire city bus
implode from the first sound
of some nigga’s throat
or the weight of
his finger on
a boombox
and then every-
thing howls chaos
a storm of tense flesh
craving nothing but escape
and only finding more maze
and everything that does to bones.
Which is an arthritis I picked up in St. Louis.
so what I’m saying is that your mother isn’t Black
Doesn’t understand blood
Not like I do
	Every night I pray to every god
	that I haven’t outgrown
	that she never has to
	but she’s got you
		and every night
		i watch her come undone at the nerves
			like a forest that only prays for uproot.