Justin Groppuso-Cook

Waawiyaatanong: Sacrit City Where the Curved Shores Meet

Where we say: Boozhoo. What up doe? Seeing who
                                                                         you might be, what you’re all about. Round here
                                                               plants run the streets with patient authority—
                         mulberry trees uproot the concrete
                                                  & tie-dye blocks with burgundy juice,
                                                              cedar trunks engulf the fire hydrants.
              There’s a sweat on Magnolia
                          under willow ribs
                                      where grandfathers burn blue
                                                  under strawberry moons. Where gospel music intermingles
                                                                            with ululations of ancient-future tongues.
Where we rock as-salāmu ʿalaykum & the universal rules
                                                  of respect & be cool.
                                                              We’ve been bombed out by negligence, imploded
                                                                            with pride.
                                                                                       But the moss talking back—
                                                                            Babylonian gardens flow
                                                  from balconies, Corinthian ruins
              uphold their blossoming. Black men
                          congregate at the corner store
                                       in their Sunday’s best
                                                   & LED palm trees bleach brown bags
                                                              packing summer heat.

                                                                            On the courts, labyrinth cracks seep
with spongy tar that black boys cross up for the fade. Upside down, breakers freeze
                          with the city on their backs. Griots busk
                                       on five gallon buckets, voicing history
                                                   in polyrhythmic rapture. Women
                                                              kneel under chain-link arbors
                                                                            as the bell for Maghrib rings.
I’m in the backyard brewing oni
              into obsidian goop, a medicine I pray
                          will rinse the soot collecting in our eyelids.

                          For all we have
                                       are these dreams
                                                   that always tease to plume                 into incinerator puffs.
                                       
                                       But hustlers set aside work
                                                   to offer up tobacco & Anishinaabek tap the sugarbush.
                                                              An echo: biskaabiiyang. Knocks
                                                                            like the distance reaching back.
                                                                                       Better recognize.

Sipping sumac out the plastic cup, my brother gets braided up on Burlingame,
                          Gigi weaving his hair like threads of Hazy’s jingle dress—
                                       like jungle vines entwining trestle
                                                   in our makeshift greenhouse—
                                                              like lowriders parting traffic with
                                                                            the most high beams on Gratiot. Outer Drive

                                                              connects neighbor to the hood in a cypher,
                                                   this living cypher we dub aadizokaan.

                                       Pull up to these rivers that bend
                          resurfacing rays of our brilliance.

Justin Groppuso-Cook is a poet, musician, and healing artist from Detroit, Michigan. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Pinch, Sonora Review, and Masculinity: an anthology of modern voices published by Broken Sleep Books. His manuscript, Illuminated Pupils, has been a semi-finalist for the Black River Chapbook Competition and Tomaž Šalamun Prize. He is a writer-in-residence at InsideOut Literary Arts Project and poetry reader for West Trade Review. More information can be found on his website: www.sunnimani.com.