The Tip (Round 4)
Let's workshop this poem where two men--seemingly Crip affiliates--debate what constitutes going too far during a session with an infant prize paid for with fentanyl to a junky mom
The Tip In heady dispute overtop Bobby Brown’s “Roni”— a back and forth whose public-forum normalcy belies not only the candlelit mood of the “slow jamz,” but also the grave implications (as if the question were simply whether it would be easier to vanquish a horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses)— around a sordid coffee table two men stand: flaccid from verbal adrenaline, jeans slumped to the carpet of cigar guts, burger wrappers, and a lime teether (its vibrancy beaten by the detritus of indifference). The younger man—who supplied that fentanyl key to the heart of the pockmarked mother, now sedate in its broken pulse against the under-toilet linoleum— remains firm in the siren-laden section eight of trash turned trashier by the guileless gurgles of innocence, the coos: “Big Cuz. You talkin bout killin this bitch!” “How you figure? Little bitch suckin like she hungry. Got that mah-fuckin instinct. Look: like mom dukes and shit.” The younger man shakes his head, but still stroking his rope. “I’m talkin size. Shit too tight, Cuz!” Each cradles a “tenderoni” foot (coarsened thumbs— matchstick strikers—gentle against the pliant arches) as might any normal adult wiping clean chubby creases before diaper-change talcum. The nonpenetration rule (reaffirmed by the mom before her bathroom dash) the free-rider, bandana blue, takes as mere suggestion: “Trust, Young Cuz.” Unperceived from the cellarage, an irrelevant factoid gained in juvie health class—how girls are born with all their eggs—syringes conviction into his numb stance, one still facing furrowed brows. “On God, Cuz. Shit born ready to stretch crazy.” “Nah, I’m good on that.” “Ain’t even hearin me! Lil nigga, how you think they gon have babies?!” “Nigga, she ain’t ready to have no fuckin’ baby!” “Shit be born stretchable, Cuz. Just can’t hit deep.” After a teabag into the suckling reflex to restore that baby-arm rigidity, he snatches the other foot (“Tsk”)—rotating its rashy butt to the missionary edge. “Just the tip. See? Steady cooin for that chocolate! Slut like mom dukes. Bet she take two pipes, nigga!"
