If I could touch your garment / would I be calmed?
                                Helene Johnson


when I used to buy Rick Owens , I couldn't
afford it , but it was dope ,
so I found the money . I was
disappointed but undeterred ,
my hair flush in five rows , my dreams
were secured with titanium
zippers . death , rebirth , the psychological
problem of clothing , with maggots
in the heads of all administrators , worth shattered
by keystrokes . we expect
white: eggshell, ivory, lily
of the valley, winter, swiss
satin, bone – it’s a question of form
and taste . so that when I put on a garment
when I wear cotton or silks ,
I ask : will it feel like
me against my skin?

I had to live , it was in my system ,
it was a uniquely American
Circumstance , too white for the white kids
and too black for the blacks . I’m everybody but
in Him I had my being , I loved
you and I wouldn’t crack , in jeans that screamed
hedi slimane , gray waxed luster denim
too tight for guns , contradiction , cut and sewed
sometimes , the way

4

our lives can never be

so I took the meeting . I took another one
I quoted and requoted
I put Barneys out of business
I became a star to myself ,
the world
I connected the Negro Leagues
and Al-Aqsa Flood
I spoke of progressive mankind because a policy of discrimination at home
must inevitably create racist commodities for export abroad
WAR!! in all five senses ,,

I returned to a simpler time , the 1990s ,
with waffle knits , puffers , fleece , a line
for women . close to life like totality ,
infinity , earth-toned and hip-hop ,
European . I moved to Kensington
to have a baby since life is repetitive
and general . I told the truth in poems .
codes are heads on pikes , the perimeter
of my life’s meaning . but I didn’t like
the new york school – racially exhausting .
who’s weird? I’m tall , handsome –

but I’m not a woman – it began
to impinge on my creative process .
I still hadn’t learned discipline –
no one’s been able to beat me into it .
I finally turned off the projector .
purpose is a thread you can pass

5

through the eye of a needle , poor
or not . last time I saw Matthew

I was into what you could call standpoint epistemology
and he didn’t like it no . some people might be
more equipped to know I said but knowing
is an activity . I was trapped in a “ rearguard action .
and drove a volkswagen the color of dark grass .
I worked with Kanye til he threw me out
but I always knew I could make it on my own , if I tried ,
if I never got
tired .

I never get tired . I live in a hallway
where everything’s too hot ,
too empty . lovers like it
when I’m there , but
that’s it , the streetlights hit the snow
and make it sing , and I sing ,
cuz I’m not a scholar – I’m a product
of the civil rights era , of which I said
“ if they’re fighting just to be seen as humans , they don’t have
the luxury not to present themselves with elegance .
every historical nail gets hammered
by whatever I put the principles of design
into , every day on earth with

nuclear weapons , poison in the air
and water . I was in Tokyo thinking
about where androgyny and misogyny
make love , they kiss . fear and self-hatred

6

are aggression factories , on the trains
and buses , free or not . blazers ,
overcoats , ties ,
furthermore , the black panthers were CHIC .
though it’s a very sensitive subject . this is
the coldest day of the year
and the year has just begun . this is the strongest
I will ever be , I think , and I find
a thousand ways to waste it ,
edited and translated by the death

of jazz , of mao . cool
smoke rises over the greatest factories
of los angeles . the promise was so big that
. I gape and wonder where it’s gone
bitten on the nape of the neck by
swag “ swag , palimpsestic
as the speech of the stupid .

oh my god what happened to virgil ??
I saw a lane and made a way
in the Amerikan fashion industry . I strung
chicken wire between choices
cuz I’m as regular as they come .
this kid maurice would spit on my food
when he spoke , my fleece would fly off .
take it ! I’m still hungry . I no longer have strong ideas

about what art should do , just intuitions .
my ideas , they couldn’t be here , you hear me
they gotta be somewhere else like the call to prayer

7

reaching through wind wall debris . we’d go
to play baseball and I’d talk about the logos ,
move it here , make it bigger .

guilt is a positive feedback loop . so I knew
what I was proposing
was missing in the market . TD Jakes
says Delilah infiltrated Samson , took his secrets
and destroyed his peace –
avoid entertaining thoughts
that will destroy your peace !! I’m self-employed ,
a black-owned business . and I employ others too .
I’m in the qualitative middle of my life
doing strength training for my chosen family ,

I’m working , I’m working out , I’m working material

then I look at my daughter and I look away
because nothing ever works

is the author of Glaring and Fear of God Essentials (coming in the spring).