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I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown. I saw my first magic show in middle school. A visiting magician made lunch

containers disappear.

Chairs levitate.

In a previously cut sheet of paper,

whole again, right before our eyes.

She dramatically uttered the word abra-cadabra.

And presto, a veil dropped to reveal the world

in all of its enchantment. That single word triggered a wonder in me about the unseen,

about things as they are beyond the physical plane. I had not yet taken Mr. Feltyberger's physics class at Philadelphia's Central High,

or any other science classes that might have explained some of her tricks.

The illusion of magic opened up for me something else as a vehicle to the other side, to what lies hidden.

Language.

All one had to do was channel their intelligence and spirit

and imagine that molecules

recostulate or vanish altogether. I still carry a small belief that words

assembled in an as-yet-discovered order can shift our material reality, can change

the consciousness of a person, a community, a nation.

This kind of capable poet, who Jerome Rothenberg refers to as

...