"Anxiety Attack"
by Georgio Russell

Once, from a hospital bed, newly severed
from all the cords and fondle

of a second echo test, the chill
of the gel and patches fresh as a tremor

on my chest, I saw some crows
(or the kin of crows) collect like boys below

a banyan and remembered my brothers
at the base awaiting ready guineps

I’d knock toward them, our pores
like gorging mouths that made a mango’s

mess of the heat—then the pale tobacco lady
who believed me a thief made

her shout slip under my feet,
a sandy dent where my descending

body crackled after the branches had.
With those crows, I wondered if, given

the chance to change it, they would
overthrow the omen of their colour

to make an amen in the eyes instead—
instead of prejudice, a promise, or maybe

a kind of pride would make them keep it
tucked in the prose of another author,

the silvered accents of black
on a playa’s lapels, the slip of ebonics

a clue as to who would sign their set
and act a fool, blaze a field, behead a Hamlet.

I heard those young crows laugh as I lay
in the wet taser of my nerves, and knew

I’d choose the nightmare of my skin again
for sake of the same sloppy fruit,

the same brothers and the failing
bushel of their arms, though this melanin

means more reasons to feel
the inquisitions in my stomach, the edges

of wings etching a new doubt, each flap
another plea to be repaired.

 

 

 

From The Malahat Review's spring issue #230