The Trayvon Martin verdict

i have two new pieces in mauve
with frames made of old oak,
full of character lines reminding me
of a face etched in heavy sorrow instead of a smile.
after Trayvon there isn't a whole lot to cheer for,
but come this fall there will be pigskins wrapped around
air bladders and stadiums filled with crazed fans waiting for more action
and less talk, while hot dog relish and sipped beer stain their academic shirts.
These passing moments will run on, like a hurried sentence,
as giant scoreboards blink excitedly in an epileptic fit of commercial exuberance.
in America, a tight end is both a blocker and the way she wears her jeans.
yet there is a silence at night, once the lights are turned out.
and there is a darkness before dawn which can blind the most sharp-eyed
hunter, but only the early walker can see the early bird.
from here, a close planet casts its reflected light on the waters of a nearby free-flowing river.
in my basement, a well-used, hooded sweatshirt
filled with tears and burn holes from a day working as a welder
said more about my past than the Wall Street Journal
has ever said about the future of America, which a party guest said
would come to an end around the year 2050.
i was intrigued, but our discussion was brief.
between puffs on a cigarette, she spoke in hushed
Mandarin Chinese, learned in elementary school partly as a result of
globalization, but also in an attempt to study if a bilingual brain is better at reasoning.
i reasoned she was pretty smart and we shared predictions:
what i predicted was that, in 2050,
there will still be handguns for sale from my local dealer, especially the Beretta,
Sig Saur, Smith & Wesson, and Heckler & Koch models.
by that time, Trayvon will have been dead for 38 years,
deprived of any future opportunity to learn a different language,
and without his own two new pieces in mauve.