When You're a Star, They Let You Do It
       

The man golded, eagled & emptied of
every opposition he
                                wealthed himself, notched
his numbers into the bedframe, into the black
book, into the lacquer over
                                            my country t'is of these things
we power & we praise. Kennedy-toothed, he chipped
off the old block to make a new block
                                                              around which he circled
his women, their waists noosed in leather, Gucci'd
& scarved, & he took
                                    a blue pill & gave her two white
pills & along with sleep she swallowed
                                                                the blame for
he called her angel & she heard heaven
& he meant act dead
so my will may be done
for in the kingdom of coined sons
the hearts of the fathers don't beat
                                                        for their daughters, for
in America the body of a woman is a space to be filled,
is the place beyond self, is the way light lends its shimmer
to the surface of a lake
                                    in which a woman has slipped
into an under where her mouth at last opens & fish
shiver, schooled & fleeting, as the sound of the water
becomes the sound of her finally,
                                                      finally screamed.

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Copyright © 2021 Emma Bolden All rights reserved
from Bennington Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission