For Eric Garner, Who Lost Staten Island
Inside the brain of a bank,
where the world is,
I sold my breath
but then my breath was taken
and sold back to me.
You cannot sell your breath,
I was told, as if it were gold,
or chopped up change,
or dollars that could be pulverized
and used as air.
You cannot sell a grain of bread,
a crust of morning thirst,
a still life of a snowman holding
a bronchial child as she sleeps
a little closer, they told me
while I choked on the ground
and choked on my eyes
and choked on a page of the Advance
and tried to trick the sunlight
that was no longer real.
You cannot drink the water
more than once, not for free.
You cannot look at the moon
more than once, not for free.
You cannot comprehend the weight
of a cigarette more than once, not for free.
You cannot pet the sugared coals
you stole from your first, second,
or seventh Christmas trauma,
not for free, they told me
when only the chambers
of a shattered dark dandelion were real.
