Nothing New Under the Sun
Like a carcass-fat lazy river,
the chyron lays bare the fates
of Chiron & nem, & we call
that Tuesday. I’m saying boys
become memories & nobody
flinches. Black girl turns up
missing & business as usual.
I know the status quo, that it
hovers above us, kept aloft by
wings of wasps. O the woe in
the winds from those wings.
The wails in their wake. Odds
are you, too, know at least one
somebody snatched up by a
hungry bullet. The blood on
every other headline turns my
skin into spiders. I curl away
from TV screens like a light-
allergic peony. I keep the drapes
drawn in all my rooms. Told
the sun she ain’t welcome cuz
she always got new names to
report stolen from the night
before. She must be tired of death’s
grit on her tongue, the whines
of souls made to bury those they’ve
birthed. Ain’t no way she can’t
hear the choir of cracked hearts
chorusing hoarse hollers up to
her morning light—somebody’s
stink-stink now a song stuck
like a lump in the throat of a
love left behind. Left to wonder
if their gone-too-soon found
their way to a place softer than
this country of shrapnel, with
its clouds full of acid rain & mile
after mile of soil bloodied to ruin.
On our birthday, Thurgood Marshall & I discuss precedent
—After Tariq Thompson
What of would-be doctors born in chains.
Authors forbidden to carry pencil & paper.
Prospective politicians pecked to death by
Crow, left out to be lunch for vultures. To say
I was first is to deny those who were denied chance.
I hear you—there are billions of stars in the universe,
what we call the sun just happens to be the closest one,
the one that’s still alive. You get it, all them bones under
Alabama could’ve been put to better use in their living.
I see them in my dreams. Sometimes it’s hands reaching
out the muck like reeds in a swamp. Others, a meadow
overwhelmed with tulips, their yellow cups brimming
with yellowed teeth sent skyward like pollen when the
winds blow. I wish I knew what to make of this.
On our birthday, Medgar Evers & I discuss Fear
—After Tariq Thompson
Midnight rain pelts the roof, & sometimes I confuse its sound with that
of a noose being knotted. The wind assaults the shutters & I think
approaching mob. We pace our children through practice drills praying
these skills are never tested. At dinner we sit round our table hoping
the window meets no opposition to its wholeness. I know better my
shotgun’s heft than a night of peaceful slumber. I’d swap the broken
glass in my stomach for butterflies, but that wouldn’t lower the threat on
my house. I could stop speaking truth but that wouldn’t make me any
less a nigga in Mississippi. Fear not is actually terrible advice for a
nigga in Mississippi. At the marches, we still singing of futures promised
to too few of us. Police dogs remember the sweet of our blood & whine
for more. When shot through a megaphone, a threat is usually a
promise. When shot through Black skin, a bullet is usually forgiven.
When freedom rings, we’ll answer & ask, what took you so long?
What the birds know
—After Jose Olivarez
Like a rolling stone’s mirror image, I have laid my hat in homes
unfit for what love I know to give. I have lingered in the afterglow
of yesterday for years. Longer than any sane man should.
I want to learn what the birds know—how, in lieu of weathering
a winter bound to repeat, they find a new nesting place
beyond grayed skies. I’ve not yet met a cold wind
I won’t shoulder through, never perched on an icy branch
& slipped to the leaves below. Born both Black & here,
I’ve only ever known what wants me gone, & how to meet
that want with my own desire to be unmoved. O, beasts of
feather & talon, you swift, soaring beauties, tell me how to be like you,
averse to seasonal dying, singular in trajectory toward all that is green
& fruit bearing. I want to know your ways, how to live one foot
out the door. How to mount a breeze, & sail to safer harbors.
Sanctuary
If I am not insulted within thirty seconds
of walking into a room, I know I am not
amongst my niggas. Praise the tongues
that paint me with the worst names.
My chaotic choristers, my closest kin
locking in on my leaning sneakers
& nappy ass hair. Smiling with teeth
yellow enough to be a halo, they
crown me. Roast me royal. Stab me
in the gut with soft daggers, all before
I can even shed my coat & pop a squat.
I blab rebuttals bout bygone hairlines,
broken diets, their terribly rolled blunts.
Here, in this sanctuary of slurs, I am
finally enough—though my niggas will
say I am too much, noting the way my
muffin top spills over my waistband
& how a B-cup wouldn’t stand a chance
against my chest. All things considered,
I can think of no place I’d rather be
than in this room rife with chuckles &
boozy breath, situated round a rickety
card table dented with memories of
spades games that got a bit heated.
O, my friends, my niggas, my heart &
heart & heart, I am lost outside any
room not darkened by your shade,
curse me crooked. Mock my mannerisms
& choice of cologne, my sloop footed
gait & obvious bluffs. Rebuff my hot
takes & take the last hot & ready slice
when you see me reaching for it. You
deserve this, the grease, the good &
plenty of a cup of brown & a belly
laugh at my expense. Life is very long,
& so full of woe, it’s best we be here,
sharing cigs & bad advice, thinking about
all the years we’ve had & all the years
we have left.
Three Hearts
I awake to sounds of my dog puking in the kitchen
& my box fan gently humming its dusty aria.
I yawn & scratch, forgetting, for once, to regret
making it through the night. Today, it seems, my
brain is on my side. I trudge to the window, see
the frost night gifted, wonder if my gas tank has
enough for me to warm the engine & make it to work.
Winter has a routine I wish anxiety would employ.
I rouse my boy & cook his breakfast of smoked sausage
& tater tots. We’re sitting at the table gnawing our vittles,
going over numbers & letters between greasy swallows,
when the fact that I will someday be one of his memories
begins echoing in my head loud as a storm siren.
My boy’s voice becomes a spore in my tornado
of alternate endings. & this is not the time. Not as
he tells me the octopus has three hearts, swinging his legs
& grinning like fields of wheat wave & smile at the sun.
