Written for the inauguration of Zohran Mamdani,
Jan 1, 2026, NYC.
Proof
You have to imagine it:
______________
Who said you were too dark/too
Large? Too queer/too loud?
______________
Who said you were too poor/
Too strange? Too fat?
______________
You have to imagine it:
______________
Who said you must keep quiet?
Who heard your story, then
Rolled their eyes?
______________
Who tried to change your name
To invisible?
______________
You’ve got to imagine:
______________
Who heard your name
And refused to pronounce it?
Who checked their watch
And said “not now”?
______________
James Baldwin wrote:
______________
“The place in which I’ll fit
Will not exist
Until I make it.”
______________
New York, city of invention,
Roiling town, refresher
And re-newer,
______________
New York, city of the real,
Where the canyons
Whisper in a hundred
Tongues,
______________
New York,
Where your lucky self
Waits for your
Arrival,
______________
Where there is always soil
For your root.
______________
This is our time.
______________
The taste of us/the spice of us
The hollers and the rhythms and
The beats of us.
______________
In the echo of our
Ancestors,
Who made certain we know
Who we are.
______________
City of Insistence,
City of Resistance,
______________
You have to imagine:
______________
An Army that wins without
Firing a bullet,
A joy that wears down
The rock of no.
______________
Up from insults,
Up from blocked doors,
Up from trick bags,
Up from fear/up from shame,
Up from the way it was done before.
______________
You have to imagine:
You have to imagine:
______________
That space they said wasn’t yours.
That time they said you’d never own.
The invisible city lit, on its way.
______________
This moment is our proof.
______________
This moment is our proof.
from The Poetry Foundation
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.