André Naffis-Sahely
Maybe the People Don’t Want to Live and Let Live In memoriam, Arthur Lee (1945–2006)

Sun-drunk I roll

along the streets of Los Angeles

while the radio rewrites

the world as I know it: the Sahara,

it seems, is no longer a desert:

it is a graveyard, while the Mediterranean

they add, is no longer a sea—it too

is now a graveyard...strung out, I stare

at hummingbirds high on sugar

and switch over to Love. I try to picture you,

Arthur Lee, a jazz-talking child

of redlined south central. You were a prince

...