Since “He-Who-Must-Not-Be Named”
Knelt on the neck
Of “Say His Name, George Floyd”
You’ve held our nation’s hope.
Now a new “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”
Kneels on all our necks.
Nameless until our nation’s Nuremberg,
Because acclaim of his name is his aim,
As sure as
Three shots to the face
Of “Say Her Name, Renee Good”
Practically proved that he
“Could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue…”

Those shots shattered
Froze my response
Until now when heat rises distant
For your democracy’s-death-defying
47-below-with-wind-chill march
And deadline urgency
Burning since my Minnesota Daily years
Pushes me to press play by your 2 p.m.
On these memories of your hundreds of beloveds.

Classmates, street-prophet poets
Like Malik Del Mar,
Sandwich builders, mad carpenters,
Dylan wannabes, the King of Wings, and
Every striving Somali cabbie
Speaking crystalline American English cleaner
Than “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

And professors who taught jazz, Wu Daozi,
Catullus, and Huey Newton,
Who administered The BITCH 100,
Summa cum lauded honesty
In our chapters and verses,
Ran for mayor of Minneapolis
As a Communist.

And women who received my love poems
(Or did not for my fears),
Strong feminists without effeminizing,
Who left me a far better man
Than they found —
Through firelight wonderings,
Mental wanderings over
4 a.m. cigarettes and coffee,
Closing ranks against
Cold closed hearts.

Hundreds of beloveds,
My heart bleeds, but beats warm for you today.