Table of Contents
Something You Should Know 9
What the ocean said to the black boy 10
For the Boys at the Bottom of the Sea 11
The Boy and His Ball 12
Soles 13
Ode to the Loop-de-Loop 14
My Jump Shot 15
Full-Court Press 17
What the cicada said to the black boy 18
Ode to 9th & O NW 19
What the fire hydrant said to the black boy 20
Counting Descent 21
Keeping Score 23
A lineage 24
Counterfactual 25
Playground Elegy 26
Ode to the Only Black Kid in the Class 27
What the window said to the black boy 28
Saturday Morning Routine 29
When Maze & Frankie Beverly Come on in My House 30
Ode to the Drizzy Drake Hands 32
How to Fight 33
Zero Gravity 34
Ode to the End-of-Year 6th Grade Picnic 35
Passed Down 36
Dissection 37
For Charles 38
For the Boys Who Never Learned How to Swim 40
Beyond This Place 41
For the Taxi Cabs that Pass Me in Harvard Square 42
James Baldwin Speaks to the Protest Novel 43
Canon 44
On Observing My Home After the Storm 45
What is left 46
Lifeline 47
The Protest Novel Responds to James Baldwin 48
The Men in Orange 49
How Malcolm Learned to Read 50
From the Cell Block 51
How to Make an Empty Cardboard Box Disappear in 10 Steps 52
Meteor Shower 53
Chaos Theory 54
No More Elegies Today 56
An Evening at the Louvre 57
An Inquiry 59
Each Morning Is a Ritual Made Just for Us 60
Line/Breaks 61
When They Tell You the Brontosaurus Never Existed 62
Today I Bought a Book for You 63
Shout Out 64
It Is Early December in Cambridge 65
When Mom Braids My Sister's Hair 66
For the Hardest Days 67
Queries of Unrest 68
What the cathedral said to the black boy 69
There is a Lake Here 70
Notes 71
Acknowledgements 72