Let Us Arrive Upon a Smooth Electric Streetcar
By D.A. Lockhart
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after J. Dilla’s “So Far to Go”
To be sure I want to come in smooth, coasting down Woodward, riding the M-1 on the best ship Q-Line. Carmen Harlan cooing me through each stop as if the WDIV were a fashion show for classy ladies in fine hats and those that love them. Let their Pewabic Pottery and flat screens and for the love of Coleman Young let them play between maps of delayed return cars, spot ads for Singleton’s Cleaners, Mel Far and the Auto Mall crew, Miley and Miley’s Shrimp Shack. And let us swing on north past remodeled survivors and die-cut pre-fabbed in-fill, shake it as if the New Dance Show had crafted every sequin and flood light after the quarter-mile high of the Paris on the river Cadillac killed thousands to steal. To be sure, the way we now slid towards the centre of that which every one of us crains our necks and eyes to see even a county or national line separates us from.
Edison bulbs sway alongside streetcar. Woman in garbage bag pulls cart. Alàpahëlahëna
By D.A. Lockhart
Gaagaashibiig rises
against salmon flesh sky oiled wings into air, force of will to rise course in streams of wind above the surface of water. So that this begins with the image rather than the song, the prayer, the act that we believe Creator cast existence into being. We share images. We share regardless of ceremonies. Regardless of how we fold ourselves against the wind’s contours. In oiled-lustre we share migrations. We share rest. Gaze cast forward, mirrored in turquoise of calmed water, always churned ocean bound. Onward we race above life itself, above the surface of water. * Unami dialect of Lenape: we start to go somewhere early in the morning
Zeke Carries a City Upon his Back, Falters
By D.A. Lockhart
He understands, crumpled on
Great Western Forum floor, that the fight has landed him here, in the hard moments that craft legends and men from simple acts of doing the work that must be done. Away from home, coursing pain from an ankle ruptured, he thinks little of origins, instead of the championship that a city on the decline needs. Creation pauses beneath lights cast down by Hollywood, meant for Magic. And we recall he arrived like legend from the depths of Hoosier backwood hardcourts, from the wrong side of the Great Black Swamp, arrived as the lustre of the arsenal of democracy reaches its least, as global free markets drained a manufacturing city to its suburbs, and distance became measured by state lines rather street intersections. Measured this man is lanky, but not tall, sweet-faced with moves like a Jackson Five vinyl, the middle Lord of Our Lady of Sorrows comes to us, delivered by Knight into our midst. Fiftieth second, he rises. Returns to the court he knows that he must claim for a people watching from afar. First basket he flies loose limbed across base line into the spectators. Each one that follows a blur of a pain, numb instinct to follow through on what must be done. Spin, rise cut, double clutch, they fall and the untouchable comes within reach. He drops twenty-five in last twelve minutes of what needs be the final game of the season. Stands tall enough between shots. The city upon his back, weight upon just one high socked leg, Zeke witnesses the aftermath of abrupt whistles, network television pressure as the golden children are delivered that which script writers, advertisers demand. Two free-throws and white noise of tens of thousands receiving what they have come expecting. Gaze fixed upon hardwood below, our legend spans arms across the shoulders of fellow warriors, leaves through tunnel, understands that this struggle knows heroics but no reward. The Microwave Leans into a Fourteen-Footer
By D.A. Lockhart
Let us admire then,
these sweat glistened monuments to money earned the hard way, come by in unlikeliness of unionized benefits, hazy nights, half-waking days, and the forty-five minutes that divides people from heroes. We watch from afar like Detroit the beautiful of people of streetcars or elm-lined trees, mold free schools. Know the wingman will rise, pull us from the slumber. Microwave leans into Kercey fourteen feet out, stifts with a mean dead arm at a mid-week shift change at Warren Assembly. The way an inflated ball launched through a net can silence an arena a continent away breath life into a Midwestern city on the verge of sleep. D.A. Lockhart is the author of eight books, including Tukhone: Where the River Narrows and the Shores Bend (Black Moss Press, 2020) and Breaking Right: Stories (Porcupine's Quill, 2020) His work has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2019, TriQuarterly, ARC Poetry Magazine, Grain, Belt, and the Malahat Review among many. He is a Turtle Clan member of Eelünaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Lenape), a registered member of the Moravian of the Thames First Nation, and currently resides at the south shore of Waawiiyaatanong (Windsor,ON-Detroit, MI) and Pelee Island. His work has been generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. He is an acquisitions editor for University of Regina Press and poetry editor for the Windsor Review.
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