Ode to Blue Ivy

--after Tyrone and Dana

The poem of your life together reads like a trademark,
Jay and Beyonce, on the Gucci bags and Marc Jacobs bags
We all know are fake, and that we of course love
Not in spite of this fact but because the circle
Of authentication and signifying is broken, when you
Rhyme I often think of this Chris Rock skit from
Saturday Night Live, he is singing 90s R&B with a band
Rhyming "pank" (which is to say pink) with the phrase
"so your breath don't stank," cultural products conform
To us as we conform to them, this makes for an
Artificial environment where our despair can be enjoyed,
Where like commodities or brands it should be named.

Baby Blue Ivy's name sparkles like others in your poems--
Cristal, Rolex, Mercedes Benz, Gucci--in your raps I mean,
Which if not for cash moves should be taken for poems,
Hymns to the object becoming subject, to a past of other
Kinds of branding and the futures in your songs uncontained,
No equal signs in this, just a difference E Flat makes,
Just a difference primitive accumulation makes on the skin.