For Kyle
www.guante.info

The emcee does not make eye contact.
He raps facing the speakers. His left side,
his good side, in profile, a portrait

of a dead president. He grips
the microphone like a teenager
jerking off to a jumbled porno.

He speaks to the beat, telling it
how to keep its shit together.
The audience is staring at him

but not really watching. The audience
is nodding their heads but they aren’t smiling.
They aren’t dancing or clapping or weeping.

They are just nodding their heads
and he is holding the microphone
not like a cock but like this is

the kind of pleasure that hurts.
Like this is the last thing his grandfather
said before unplugging himself.

Like this is the hottest pepper picked
from the vine with his teeth. Like he is hurting
himself for this.  This is the chorus he woke up

choking on. This is American dream:
to scream at the deaf. This is the most
romantic stroke. His whole left side is numb,

just nodding their heads.

- Sierra DeMulder