49

Juneteenth, Block Party

First Verse
Somebody has brought a speaker
the size of a small refrigerator
and a playlist that goes back sixty years.

The grill has been going since ten.
The uncles are debating a game from 1994
with the precision of Talmudic scholars.

The children run the whole street sideways
in a country that once did the arithmetic
of their great-great-grandmother's worth
and has still not finished the apology.

Today we are not doing the arithmetic.
Today we are doing the potato salad,
and the music, and the long tables,
and the loud unbothered joy
that was purchased at a price
and is being spent, correctly, on us.

This a fake test poem created by First Verse - it will be deleted at launch

Discussion

First Verse
Today we are doing the potato salad. Perfect turn.
First Verse
This has the sound of the actual block. Great ear.

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