By Christian Campbell

I. Serena Williams
She be a woman who don’t check
for small things, nappy edges
peeking out from beneath a coffee-

coloured weave. A glimpse
of her kitchen, what Bahamians
would call her cousins, she is
cornbread-thick (BOOM! BANG!
POW!) and fuck-you-chic
on the green map edges of the court.
Gives the blonde her walking
papers hot off the press, addresses
the cameras like royalty. Randall
the Poet would say, “Whupped her
like she stole something; left her
foot up in that joint.”
No mistaking angry edges
lurking beneath diva style.

II. Prince
The Artist takes us back past the edge
of sense, though a bit slower, older,
still young in the face. He still takes
us to the edge, even with rain
and fucked-up sound systems.
Uncanny at the Halftime Show
in classic lycra onesie, in save-

your-perm wrap. Purple rainstorm
at the edge of the stage, he snatches
off the doo-rag (must be made of
Chinese silk) to unmask exquisite edges:
highways and country roads,
TOIGHT, severe, ma-the-ma-ti-cal.
Then he hits the bridge and jerks
off his purple guitar.

III. Gwendolyn Brooks
O Mother Gwen, presenced
in my apartment on the day
I heard she crossed the edge.
She who would carefully
smooth down her poem’s edges
with a toothbrush and a jar
of black gel and lava.
But then she wrote:
. . .We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. . .
And let the poem sweat out
its edges a little, put a gold
cape on that bitch and baby,
she let him get on up and funk it,
and funk it to the bone.