THIS IS YOUR FIRST TIME HEARING

by Aaron Banks

I still imagine somehow becoming a rapper
and wonder about my process of ordering track lists. 

I still find myself freestyling while at red lights,
or when getting in and out the shower, and it seems

strange how, at some point, I always utter in a verse,
It's been a minute since 

and I think that’s just because of the way the words 
sound together, that it’s a softball pitch to bridge 

along a rhyme. I still dry off from face to feet like 
Dad taught me. I can’t think of first albums without 

remembering that just for a buck, I bought College 
Dropout on bootleg a few days after its release, 

afterschool, from a kid who’s now a bodybuilding 
saxophonist. I remember the birds before the bass 

on the second track. The first night with the album, 
I listened on repeat until dead asleep, until Dad 

woke me by an amputation of earphones, a disc snap, 
laying on of hands in prayer for whatever had entered 

my ear gate. I was nearly a rapper until disc bits shimmer 
down upon me. I sometimes imagine that he beat me 

back to sleep, and how things could’ve been like that 
if he chose to drink and wager tuitions on bowl games. 

I couldn’t be a comedian at this stage. Childhood gone 
traumaless since I always knew my parents slept in their 

room. He’d wake us by lifting our bed frames, reciting, 
rise and shine, get some fresh underwear on that behind.

Aaron Banks was born and raised in Rochester, NY, where he still lives with his wife and two daughters. He received his MFA from Warren Wilson in 2022 and works at the University of Rochester as an academic advisor for their Ronald E. McNair program. He is seeking publication for his first poetry collection, Cottonwood Man, And is working on a new poetry project and short essays. He can be contacted via email: aabanks118@gmail.com