It's Important I Remember That Toni Morrison Dubbed Bill Clinton the First Black President―

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

                  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.