<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Inaugural<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">We were told that it is dangerous to touch<br class="">And yet we journeyed here, where what we believe<br class="">Meets what must be done. You want to see, in spite<br class="">Of my mask, my face. We imagine, in time</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Of disease, our grandmothers<br class="">Whole. We imagine an impossible<br class="">America and call one another<br class="">A fool for doing so. Grown up from the ground,</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Thrown out of the sea, fallen from the sky,<br class="">No matter how we’ve come, we’ve come a mighty<br class="">Long way. If I touch any of you, if I<br class="">Shake one hand, I am nearer another</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Beginning. Can’t you feel it? The trouble<br class="">With me is I’m just like you. I don’t want<br class="">To be hopeful if it means I’ve got to be<br class="">Naïve. I’ve bent so low in my hunger,</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">My hair’s already been in the soup,<br class="">And when I speak it’s just beneath my self-<br class="">Imposed halo. You’ll forgive me if you can<br class="">Forgive yourself. I forgive you as you build</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">A museum of weapons we soon visit<br class="">Just to see what we once were. I forgive us<br class="">Our debts. We were told to wake up grateful,<span class="evw5hdy0 css-8l6xbc" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br class="">So we try to fall asleep that way. Where, then,</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Shall we put our pains when we want rest?<br class="">I don’t carry a knife, but I understand<br class="">The desperation of those who do,<br class="">Which is why I am recounting the facts</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">As calmly as I can. The year is new,<br class="">And we mean to use our imaginations.<br class="">One of us wants to raise George Stinney<br class="">From the dead. One of us wants a small vial</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Of the sweat left on Sylvia Rivera’s<br class="">Headband. Some want to be the music made<br class="">Magical by Bill Withers’s stutter.<br class="">Others come with maps and magnifying</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Glasses and graphite pencils to find<br class="">Locations beside the mind where we are not<br class="">Patrolled or surveilled or corralled or chained.<br class="">I, myself, have come to reclaim the teeth</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">In George Washington’s mouth and plant them<br class="">In the backyards of big houses that are not<br class="">In my name. My cousins want to share<br class="">A single bale of the cotton our mothers</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Picked as children. I would love to live<br class="">In a country that lets me grow old.<br class="">I long. I long for that. We are otherwise<br class="">Easily satisfied. Where do we get</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Tangerines for cheap? Can we make it<br class="">There on the Metro? How hot is the fire<br class="">Fairy blister of chocolate chipotle sauce,<br class="">And will you judge me if I taste it? But now,</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">We’ve put our hunger down for the time it takes<br class="">To come and reconcile ourselves to the land<br class="">Because it is holy, to the water<br class="">Because it swallowed our ancestors,</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">To the air because we are dumb enough<br class="">To decide on something as difficult<br class="">As love. If no one’s punishment leads to<br class="">My salvation, then accountability</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Is what waits. It moves citizens, mends nations.<br class="">That’s for us to prove. That’s the deed to witness.<br class="">That’s the single item on the agenda<br class="">Read in Braille or by eye, ink drying like blood</div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.9375rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.875rem; vertical-align: baseline; width: 600px; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Spilled this American hour of our lives.</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.375rem; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); width: 600px; max-width: 100%; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Jericho Brown</div></div></div></body></html>