The following poem was written for our episode, "If My Body is a Text," which explores how to absorb and address the flood of images, video, and information online when paying attention can be painful and exhausting. Listen here.   LETTER BEGINNING, ‘IF MY BODY IS A TEXT’ by Kiki Petrosino   then you must learn to read. My hands, double book of them the threat you think my hands become when they unfold, hello.   You find me in the cool of my car. Slim universe of my colored self, slim chance of saying what I need to say to turn my hands into a book   or turn me back into the child who memorized each rank of angels Thrones Dominions Virtues Thrones—   You, too, must learn to read. There, in the lagoon of every book:   a body I pulled up by the hand.   Another body I lift beside mine, my thoughts becoming body of light body of light   You, too, must learn to read.   How it feels for a colored child to lean & loafe, to take her ease in a thought—   Like skimming across some blue wideness the moon appearing in day-sky. You’ll say:   I didn’t know that was possible, didn’t know before the possible—         You, too, must learn to read.   At Monticello, once: the 13th amendment hung for three days, brown & spotted as a lion’s muzzle, pale syllables of Lincoln’s signature slowly fraying under glass.   I wanted that warm page of skin, its words slanted alternatingly, as if the pen had wished to loafe against another body endless field of work, America, endless animal face in the work—     You, too, must learn to read.   I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom. That ain’t no harm.   I drove my car this morning with my mind stayed on freedom.                That ain’t no harm.   I held my hands at 10 & 2, my mind stayed on freedom. That ain’t no harm.   I spun the warm wheel of my life so smooth this morning. No harm.   I drove towards sunrise this morning, all morning my mind stayed on freedom.   No harm, no harm. No harm—   You, too, must learn to read.