God loves the stench
            of burning flesh, Laquan.
            And I’ve heard bullets
            burn the blackness
            out of bones.
 
IF only your leaving the scene
            was exit-stage-right, and
            your rock step to pirouette
            to splay for Ailey
            rather than dash-cam—
 
IF only this scene was lit
            not by hypostatic strobes
            but laureated iris blue,
            your ballistic moves could
            have been seen as ballet.
 
Laquan, we met you at the altar—
            a cocksure ram,
            un-thicketed
            a bounty to appease
            the incessant I Am.
 
We prayed that your aroma would
            steal up to God’s sooty nostrils
            balm his blistered lips
            pool in his pitted throat
            coat his clysmic need.
 
We blasphemed: if only Cain
            had offered you first, without flaw
            and if the Cyrenian never
            took up the cross, this world
            would not see us as sin.