Spectral Evidence by Gregory Pardlo

Author:Gregory Pardlo [Pardlo, Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2024-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

Charm for Enduring the Dark Night of the Soul

Franz Boll (1849–1879)

C. P. Robin (1821–1885)

First thank Charles-Philippe Robin for discovering

melanin, the supernatural source of your

blackness, your laughter, your ichor and irony.

Were it not for Western science, you might be just

an average person. Next, recognize Franz Boll,

the physiologist who discovered that the eyes’

cones and rods, once exposed, bleach bone-

white by a protein called rhodopsin, or “visual

purple,” which enables us to see in differing

economies of light. Melanin and rhodopsin combine

in this charm to counter the veil of grouchiness

your melanin generates in the eyes of some

who have less of it to show. “Melanopsin” favors

blue-blacks and governs the body’s rhythms on

and on until the break of dawn. This compound

coheres under pressure and smolders copper-bright

and sure as heat chewing the edges of records

from family plantations. For inside the history

of entitlement nuance is redacted and all is black

and white. One drop toward the margin, and

there’s space for race understood as a theory

enacted. When melanin prompts little aggressions

in strangers, this charm will keep you from falling into

the collapsed star of their imagination and the haze

that grows around it like a cataract. This charm

employs melanopsin’s magick power to move

entire tax bases to the suburbs. Its power to move

them back. Its power, too, to remove personal

liability in rejected college applications. This charm

will help you see patterns across time and industries.

This is an anti-gaslighting charm.

Over-manifesting the power of melanopsin can cause

coffin bells to ring as you pass abandoned Negro

cemeteries, a condition commonly known as “too

black, too strong.” After a spit take of Beaujolais

to purify your nightgown, let that purple rain cloud

the vision of evil eyes as you chant-rap the following:

I know times are changing / It’s time we all reach out

for something new / That means you, too. This charm

will defend you from a metaphor for justice

that covers its eyes to truths that by its own

measure should be plain as daylight.

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