poem for hobbes by Jabulile Mickle-Molefe

                   ​Sergio CC



poem for hobbes 


i have always loved
to watch a white man hustle, all penny rich and
time poor, like she when he’s
coming home for supper and won’t be pleased
if she burns the grits, like my
mom pulling the laundry home on its string before
sundown, or
like their last shot at liberty
will puff away with the train
if they’re two minutes behind schedule 

but there’s no escaping coercion;
a fearful yes is still affirmation
a reluctant slave is a slave is a slave is a slave
named toby, rachel, named leah called sally, called
hobbes. 

who contests their autonomy these days?
the rushing white men.
the virtue
signalers?
the heroin addictions devouring the midwest like a crave case, or
is it the natural world imploding around them
the plummeting market
their women publishing exposés on their impotence,
on the coercion they enact on their others 

and where are they scrambling to get anyway? 

a slave is a slave is a slave is a slave
even the ones who call themselves master
i have always loved to watch a white man
hustle 

rush
like an ant to a mound
of pixy dust spilt at the feet of a pitiless child
rush
​like an ant to its slaughter

​

Jabulile Mickle-Molefe is a diviner based in Chicago writing essays and poems which handle heavy themes carefully, and which are often rooted in myth or philosophy. This is her second poetry publication. Her work is forthcoming in Petrichor Journal and Triangle House Review.

---