I let the flies bite me when I meditate
because I am a blood abundance
and it is said that when you yield an amplitude
it is right to give
of the surplus
and who among us would not bring forth
a teardrop of hemoglobin
if it would feed a starving beggar
and who among us could not afford
to spare a raindrop in the flash flood
O I saith unto thee,
it is this abundance
which hath bowed our backs
this bounty—
like a price
on our heads,
which hang—
but here have come
mine guardian angels
to alight upon me
and banquet,
to sit at meat
and to make my burden
light
Copyright © 2021 by Nick Demske. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 9, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I began this poem shortly after Michael Brown was killed. The original drafts spoke directly to that, but the more I edited, the more abstract it became—largely I think because I wanted to avoid exploiting the tragedy. As true as the words of the poem are, I hope the poem is also clearly a socialist meditation on equity. But ultimately, in a personal way, at least, the poem is asking the question: how much am I willing to put my own body at risk to demand safety for the whole human family? As Jesse Jackson said, as Dr. King repeated the day before he was murdered—how much are we willing to ‘redistribute the pain’ to live in solidarity with those most vulnerable among us?”
—Nick Demske
Nick Demske
Nick Demske is the author of Nick Demske (Fence Books, 2010). A children’s librarian at the Racine Public Library and County Supervisor for Racine County’s First District, Demske is the co-founder of the BONK! Poetry and Music series.