NER Ulysses Reading Series: National Poetry Month Edition - April 17, 7 PM, Humanities House, Middlebury College

Poetry from NER 40.2
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My entire wardrobe was Canal
Street original, knockoff chic,
adolescent sleek in my double XL

blue & black bubble jacket.
Yeah, I was inside the club
& what? Inside an oversized

coat coated in sweat & Old
Spice, a kid eyeing sixteen but
not quite there. I wanted it all,

chico: learner’s permit,
the latest Jordans in baby
blue, maybe a wink from

the pretty Boricua from Social
Studies. & when Biggie’s
verse dropped in “Only You”

he was in that room & teaching
us how to live elevated from
that third-floor wasteland towering

above India Point, so we sang,
sour throated & nostalgic
for times we hadn’t yet lived,

in unison: like we wrote it, till our
voices cracked & spilled over
& between every rift but in

the throng of lost kids where
I finally found a self I loved,
it all came together like we

could remix any wreckage
& make it into a stage
to slay, so we swayed &

grinded like our lives
were a music video
tribute, hip-to-hip.

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