The Future of Music

Abstract

The Future of Music Amy Shimshon-Santo (bio) I was just going home. I have no gun. I don't even kill flies. elijah mcclain ________ a siren lights the skyits howl, a chantflaming darkness on the street, besidea police car, a needlemakes an injection the spirit of a violinistin orange sneakers, bellowstruth falls from his facelike broken teeth the world stops its breath ________ the mother praysfor angel wingsand naked feetto lift his weight [End Page 121] baby, she sangwhen he was bornpraying over his limbsand stalk, his certainty elijah singing, elijahplaying, praisingdancing, elijahhis cup filled to the brim a son who serenadescats in their cageshis bow, reverberating string the mother singsbaby, you are a souland this, isaspiritual revolution ________ I know a psalm when I hear one when you murder the future of musicyou are conjuring extinction revenge made of rosesand umbilical cords ________ children of the police officersat home in their beds, sleepingtomorrow would be their summer [End Page 122] the man who washes patrol carswill scrub the declarationsof a 23-year-old from the bumperwith a thick yellow spongefrothing soapy water ________ parents hide their childrenlike acorns in their cheeksto keep them safe for winter we march, to a publicrecitation of namesnot just the panopticonof lives but its thievery the world goesto demonstrationswearing masks the masks, foldedand thin, accumulatecellular matter the virus says not a wordthe virus speechless, like the mothers'antennae tuned to murder ________ I envy the dead,not because I want to gobut because their witnessingis different [End Page 123] who can be witnessto these timesand not want to be thunder— thunder, skipping offinto the distancecautiously shaking venus, pluto mars [End Page 124] Amy Shimshon-Santo Amy Shimshon-Santo is the author of the collection Even the Milky Way Is Undocumented (Unsolicited, 2020) and Endless Bowls of Sky (Placeholder P, 2020). She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in creative nonfiction (2017), nominated for Best of the Net in poetry (2018), and recognized on the national Honor Roll for Service Learning. Find her work published by Entropy, Yes Poetry, ArtPlace America, Zócalo Public Square, Capsule Stories, Anti-Heroin Chic, Imagining America, and more. She is currently an associate professor of practice at Claremont Graduate University. Copyright © 2020 University of Nebraska Press