That fantasy joint

We ain’t never going to give

this fucking life up

—Future

Big-horned parades trumpeting

in my head & the winking flags

over skyscrapers raise their finger Vs

in the new, empty downtown

with boarded windows & spray

paint tongues. & the brass bands

dislocated by patriotic embouchures—

big tonsils like exclamations,

tongues on point inside the silver-

ringed mouthpieces—now sing

songs of fantasy & prescriptions.

Still not sure when this trap

extravaganza became my thing

after the windows smash & rubber

bullets, all of these tagged walls

commemorating a different integrity.

The humdrum mumble of drugs

& strippers drum the Indy pavement

like litany & apology. But the fingers

on your neck, red toes conundrumed

into whip smart conversation during

the revolution—that’s fantasy ready

to be unfastened like a package

that should have been delivered

on Tuesday. We can’t have parties

anymore but in my fantasy, the band

plays & eyes are made in spotlights.

The next thing you know, we’re

our own thing behind cigarette dragons

trying to unzipper, hands like mittens.

Adrian Metejka is the author of The Devil’s Garden (Alice James Books, 2003) which won the New York / New England Award and Mixology (Penguin, 2009), a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series. Mixology was also a finalist for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature. His third collection, The Big Smoke (Penguin, 2013), focuses on Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight champion of the world. The Big Smoke was awarded the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was also a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award, 2014 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and 2014 Pulitzer Prize in poetry. His most recent book, Map to the Stars, was published by Penguin in 2017. His first graphic novel Last On His Feet is forthcoming from Liveright in 2021.