American Income

The survey says all groups can make more money if they lose weight except black men...men of other colors and women of all colors have more gold, but black men are the summary of weight, a lead thick thing on the scales, meters spinning until they ring off the end of the numbering of accumulation, how things grow heavy, fish on the ends of lines that become whales, then prehistoric sea life beyond all memories, the billion days of human hands working, doing all the labor one can imagine, hands now the population of cactus leaves on a papyrus moon waiting for the fire, the notes from all their singing gone up into the salt breath of tears of children that dry, rise up to be the crystalline canopy of promises, the infinite gone fishing days with the apologies for not being able to love anymore, gone down inside earth somewhere where women make no demands, have fewer dreams of forever, these feet that marched and ran and got cut off, these hearts torn out of chests by nameless thieves, this thrashing until the chaff is gone out and black men know the gold of being the dead center of things, where pain is the gateway to Jerusalems, Bodhi trees, places for meditation and howling, keeping the weeping heads of gods in their eyes.