Stingily says on systemic violence in Black communities,

adding, “to not live in violence is a privilege.” Peepholes

are musts because you didn’t open the door for anybody.

I grew up in the Bronx River Projects—our door, metal.

After the war, my father was given electroshock therapy

(almost all of the violence I feared wasn’t out in the hall).

My father was in a tank destroyer unit and fought Nazis.

After the war, he was in-and-out of a psychiatric hospital.

Courts allowed home visits; then he was back for battery

(more shock treatment was an alternative to going to jail).

What Stingily is saying about a bat at the door isn’t pretty

but how you grow up is probably how you see the world.

It doesn’t matter if you make installations or write poetry.