They'll fix you. They fix everything
- Alex Murphy, Robocop

It's 30 til midnight
& I'm sitting on my porch
melting down into nothing
inside summer's spit

& I'm watching this young woman
casually jog through the hood
a ray of moonlight unphased
by the same dark that held me in

its unpredictable mouth kept me
quicktwitch in case of teeth but not
her    running down the same middle
of the street as me three years ago

only 100% less Ricky from Boyz
In Da Hood & its quiet so I can hear
her headphones thumping some
Taylor Swift electronic remix

so fearless she doesn't even hear the tires
crawling impatiently behind her   wet street
hissing I mean there is a sidewalk
like seriously what the fuck but I'm steady

stuck on her invincible pace at this time
of night no less like a bullet tunneling
through bulletproof and its crazy
because on one hand the hood seems

less ravenous now less snapjaw less
close-call which is cool but on the other
it's the wolvesbreath what taught me
this Detroit urgency   this lycanthropic love

that leaves the rawest nights tallied
in the skin and who is anybody to not
have to know that dangerous
hover of sharp fang unseen

only to be better for it?

this is how everything new comes into
the block now— a gradual oblivious
exercise that barely breaks a sweat
in places I used fear an ocean into

which sounds terrible until you understand
that salt is as much the base element
in reverence as it is in violence
how in order to call this place home

you must be haunted house to least
3 ghosts     bled a god into the decay   bloomed
3 goldless heavens  & love it still
you must know this city as a mother

her .22 the only thing between you & the locusts
then come to terms with how many children she let
slip into the ravage in order to keep you from being prey
long enough for to grow getback of your own

so I don't know what to make of this

privilege    how to fit into its skinny
I only know the dissolving inside
a familiar mouth and pulling oneself back
into a solid.

this is the only way to make love

to Detroit:  not some safe missionary
bounce but with muscle so tense the slightest
wind turns every shot nerve into a caucus
of violins played by teeth

the next unknown
note suspended           in the darkness waiting
to be                                        found
the anticipation                       murder.