First, let's add the poem to which this question refers:
This poem will be guilty. It assumed it retained
the right to ask its question after the page
came up flush against its face. The purpose
this poem serves is obvious, even to this poem,
and that cannot stop the pen or the fist
choking it. How the page tastes at times—unsalted
powerlessness in this poem’s mouth, a blend
of that and what it has swallowed of the news. It spits
blood—inking. It is its own doing and undoing.
This poem is trying to compose itself. It has
the right to remain either bruised or silent,
but it is a poem, so it hears you’d be safer
if you stopped acting like a poem, ceased resisting.
Where is the daylight (this poem asks and is thus crushed) between existence and resistance,
between the now-bloodied page and the poem? Â
Another poem will record the arrest of this poem,
decide what to excerpt. That poem will fail—
it won’t find the right metaphor for the pain
of having to lift epigraphs from the closing
words of poems that were accused of resisting. Â
That poem is numb. This poem is becoming
numb, already losing feeling in its cuffed phrasing.
No one will remember the nothing of which
this poem was accused—just that it was another
poem that bled. This poem never expected to be
this poem, yet it must be—for you who will not
acknowledge the question. This poem knew
it was dangerous to ask why?
Answer and Explanation:
We have heard of and seen several cases of unjust arrests and imprisonment. It is, unfortunately, a common occurrence that may take away years and years of someone's life. Those cases are also - and this is a painful reality - very much related to prejudice and racism.
In those cases, people do not have their rights respected. They are beaten, threatened, intimidated to the point of confessing. They are judged and put away, and then they are forgotten. That is precisely what the poem we are analyzing here conveys. The poem's arrest is an unjust one. Let's highlight the words and phrases that contribute to that idea:
This poem will be guilty.
that cannot stop the pen or the fist  /choking it.
It has  / the right to remain either bruised or silent,
unsalted  / powerlessness
It spits  / blood—inking.
No one will remember the nothing of which  / this poem was accused
As we can see above, the author is conveying the suffering of someone who has been unjustly taken, beaten, choked, threatened, and so on. What happens to this poem is sheer cruelty. It cannot defend itself - it is not given a chance to do so.
