Marcus Wicker Poems

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
-1 Corinthians 12:13
If in his image made am I, then make me a miracle.
Make my shrine a copper faucet leaking everlasting Evian to the masses.
Make this empty water glass a goblet of long-legged French wine.
Make mine a Prince-purple body bag designed by Crown Royal
for tax collectors to spill over & tithe into just before I rise.
If in his image made am I, then make my vessel a pearl Coupe de Ville.
Make mine the body of a 28-year-old black woman
in a blue patterned maxi dress cruising through Hell on Earth, TX
again alive. If in his image made are we, then why
the endless string of effigies?
Why so many mortal blasphemes?
Why crucify me in HD across a scrolling news ticker, tied
to a clothesline of broken necks long as Time?
Is this thing on? Jesus on the ground. Jesus in the margins.
Of hurricane & sea. Jesus of busted levees in chocolate cities.
Jesus of the Middle East (Africa) & crows flying backwards.
Of blood, on the leaves, inside diamond mines, in under-
developed mineral-rich countries. If in your image made are we,
the proliferation of your tie-dyed hippie doppelgänger
makes you easier to daily see. & in this image didn't we make
the godhead, slightly stony, high enough to surf a cloud?
& didn't we leave you there, where, surely, paradise or
justice must be meted out? Couldn't we see where water takes
the form of whatever most holds it upright? If then this
is what it's come down to. My faith, in rifle shells.
In Glock 22 magazine sleeves. Isn't it also then how, why,
in a bucket shot full of holes, I've been made to believe?
...

No chain link fences leapt in a single bound. No juke

move Nike commercial, speeding bullet Skittles-hued
Cross Trainers. No brown skin Adonis weaving trails of

industrial Vaseline down a cobblestone street. Heisman-shucking
trash receptacles. Grand jeté over the little blue recycling

bin, a prism of clouds rising beneath his feet. Nobody all-fucked
in boot cuffs wide enough to cloak court appointed tethers.

Or slumped over, hoodie-shrouded - sheepishly scary according to
one eye witness. Definitely not going to be your Louis V

Sweat Suit red carpet fashion review, coming at you live from E!
& Fox News outside of the morgue. No chance for

homeboy in the peekaboo boxer shorts. Homeboy with the frozen
wrists. Iced. Homeslice with the paisley, Pretty Flacko Flag

flying by the seat of low-slung denim - no defense
attorney gets to call me Gang Related. Tupac

in a mock leather bomber. No statement taken
from the Clint Eastwood of your particular planned

community, saying he had the right to stand his ground
at the Super Target. Because my flat-billed, fitted cap

cast a shady shadow over his shoulder in the checkout line. No, siree.
See, I practice self target practice. There is no sight of me

in my wears. I bedecked in No Wrinkle Dockers. Sensible
navy blazer. Barack Obama tie, Double Consciousness-

knotted. Stock dandelion pinned to the skin of an American
lapel with his head blown off.
...