This Summer's Remix

This Summer's Remix

this is not new;

this is a remix:

my father singing snippets of Stax recordings

and my mother overseeing software engineers

and my dinners with justice-seekers

who invited me to march against racial profiling

and my music inspired

by their activism

by orbiting John Lewis

by translating Nicolas Guillen

after reading his poem about Emmett Till

by planting broccoli and picking radishes while seeing murals

of the face of Fannie Lou Hamer

and the words of Assata Shakur

are remixed here.

this is not new;

this is a remix:

my presence on both sides of the food pantry

and my sips from coffee roasters

who hike the farmers’ mountains

and my jobs without health insurance

and my dresses from garment workers

who reinvent overproduction’s excess

and my old apartment with mold

and my bags and shoes from entrepreneurs

who redistribute would-be refuse

and a hundred other tracks

of need and want

and anger and hope

are remixed here.

this is not new;

this is a remix:

for twenty-five years

I have been singing “Go Down, Moses,”

so sowing resistance songs under clouds

that splatter sidewalks in Chicago

and shade soy farms in Peru

and soften the steamy air in Birmingham

will remix this summer’s strains

for all my future seasons.