for prince
NASA has recorded an object escaping a black hole
and when my roommate wakes me with “prince is dead” i am brought back
to outer space and nylon and gold medallions and your approval is the last thing he wants tonight
gotta imagine
that my rain is the last thing he would want tonight but my heart is full of so much “was” it cannot recall “is” with any real conviction, full of so many wild wounds redux, so many black holes of us, so many holes, so many ends, so many times of death, so much time
and the whole of us, all drunk aunty mean daddy still-don’t-know-how-to-hold-me- lover, open up the dove cages set up on the top shelf of recollection in-between some smoky super bowl performance, some memory not our own (my daddy dancing with my mama for the first time), some deep down gratitude for rhinestone and its many powers, some deep down devotion to chest hair and leopard print question marks
but
if an object can escape a black hole and
“prince is dead” then:
the hurdling thing through space has a face, now
the black hole is the exit wound of a guitar solo shot straight through the sky
the stardust purple sex i ain’t ready for tonight and my mama is crying somewhere and i haven’t gathered the strength to call and commiserate our fates as burning stars if
the hurdling thing through space
is: prince
ain’t no woman/ain’t no man/ain’t the black hole/ain’t beholden to holes and here/ain’t holding anything but our wet faces
sorry to be the thing that escapes
this time
the bright black boom we hear
300 million light years later
sounds just like yesterday. sounds like galactic controversy. sounds
escape
Jonathan Jacob Moore is a Black Mexican motorcity hoodqueer poet and theory girl. He attends Tufts University and is Founding President of the Spoken Word Alliance at Tufts. He appreciates good hugs, cold cheesecake, and Black pettiness.