Two eyes struck him cold

Like snowballs pelting him flush

His body frozen in fear, the streets

rising up in him again, shoulders tightening

Legs burning in a crouch ready to pounce

& catalyze another man’s demise

His nemesis, sitting in his mind’s eye,

reached in his pocket for prison house

sharpness, the blade having made meaning before:

Here we go again, they both thought,

Here we go again, apparently Brothas

Don’t get tired of the here we go again

& the facilitator floated up, smiled

one to the other, placed his wrinkled

black hands on theirs, zen-like, all peace

& blew love into their animus

erasing years of black in black

collisions, no need my brothas

he whispered through a beautiful gap

in his white teeth, “the war be over

some time ago, they done won”;

and before he could gather the juju

coursing through his chest,

tears burned his face, flooding

his cupped hands in an avalanche,

filling them with the anguish

of peace time tumult.