It's Important I Remember That Toni Morrison Dubbed Bill Clinton the First Black President―
which I wonder if she ended up wanting to take back
as surely as the first statement has been taken out of context
by every ’90s Black stand-up act you could think of,
a silly notion suspended in a white void unaffiliated to the raw
feeling of melanin at the essence of Morrison
penning that the 42nd President of the United States,
impeached, was being “metaphorically
seized and body-searched.” Yes, we got the sax solo
on Arsenio and also “I didn’t like it and didn’t inhale”
as if, with instinctive deftness, that’s the distinction between us
and them when you get right down to it—
having discipline versus needing it imposed—
that indelible smirk I can’t help but see
traced by the slim, shadowed crease of a pillowcase hood,
good ol’ Slick Willy rolling a doobie with congressional bills,
Otis Redding rolling over in his grave
whenever somebody said that white boy from Hope
got soul, just needed a little ass is all
as all the prisons of this nation swelled with the phatness
of our bodies, stripped bare of context like poor ideas
and birdcaged by popular vote and demand,
nobody, I tell you, nobody getting off
outside White House walls, that international players monument
to free labor. All that laissez-faire commentary
being broadcasted is never balanced or fair, just lazy.
It will kill you if you don’t pull a loaded question on it, my brother:
you’ll find a cloudy stain on a solid blue dress
and think the sky has fallen
and you wouldn’t be wrong in the slightest,
but you would be a sucker, sorry to say.
