Meet Me In 811

Brian Age 7

Grateful for their tour
of the pharmacy,
the first-grade class
has drawn these pictures,
each self-portrait taped
to the window-glass,
faces wide to the street,
round and available,
with parallel lines for hair.

I like this one best: Brian,
whose attenuated name
fills a quarter of the frame,
stretched beside impossible
legs descending from the ball
of his torso, two long arms
springing from that same
central sphere. He breathes here,

on his page. It isn’t craft
that makes this figure come alive;
Brian draws just balls and lines,
in wobbly crayon strokes.
Why do some marks
seem to thrill with life,
possess a portion
of the nervous energy
in their maker’s hand?

That big curve of a smile
reaches nearly to the rim
of his face; he holds
a towering ice cream,
brown spheres teetering
on their cone,
a soda fountain gift
half the length of him
—as if it were the flag

of his own country held high
by the unadorned black line
of his arm. Such naked support
for so much delight! Artless boy,
he’s found a system of beauty:
he shows us pleasure
and what pleasure resists.
The ice cream is delicious.
He’s frail beside his relentless standard.

■

For Your New Home

God bless this house; our folks live here.
It is their dwelling so is dear
To them and us, and may we pray
That Thou wilt live here with them every day?

May this new home enrich the life of each
May goodness, grace and joy be goals to reach.
In hardship, heartache or in pain
May they seek Thee, wilt Thou sustain?

We do not ask to see Thy total plan
For all their lives, but day by day we can
As when the green leaves rise from loam
See growth revealed. GOD BLESS THIS HOME.

■

Small Kindnesses

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”

■

An Exchange of Gifts

As long as you read this poem
I will be writing it.
I am writing it here and now
before your eyes,
although you can’t see me.
Perhaps you’ll dismiss this
as a verbal trick,
the joke is you’re wrong;
the real trick
is your pretending
this is something
fixed and solid,
external to us both.
I tell you better:
I will keep on
writing this poem for you
even after I’m dead.

■

Never Again

At the end of every Holocaust film I’ve seen and
there are not many
they show real life survivors and say the words
Never Again
Some of us like me/stare into these films
down the long tunnels of history wondering
how it could have ever happened at all
that a leader and his minions could be so toxic, poisonous
you’d turn against your neighbors
you could be so oblivious, brainwashed, scared
desperate to be a superior or to survive
you’d do anything, or almost.
They say never again
but it is again
as I look at the deportations
round-ups
I’m reminded of Idi Amin when he cast out foreigners
and Forest Whitaker in the film The Last King of Scotland, when he played him.
And to see it is again
at rallies, at protests, they show the coat hangers and crude instruments
women were forced to use in back alley abortions
We say never again but taking away women’s choice
and Planned Parenthood, it is again.
Today started out in an argument with someone
who didn’t understand why I mentioned race so much
in my new book
and that white man is not the first/a Black woman
asked too.
I wanted to scream HELLO haven’t you seen the news
Didn’t you see what happened to Stephon Clark
unarmed and shot in the back six times by police
And who even cares what happens to women
Black lesbians, lesbians of color
There’s no public outcry.
A student once wrote to me in an academic paper
that a parent forced her to stop playing sports
because they said sports made her more of a dyke
It killed my student inside because she was an athlete
So the white guy I argued with about my book
said he was just giving me some good advice
from his experience as an empath
I said I don’t need your advice
I have reasons for talking about race and gender in the interpersonal
He said he was just trying to help me.
I’ll offer this nonsequitur
Winne Mandela died a few years ago
She had a great impact on me
I read she was nobility
But then the difference between her and how Princess Diana was treated
Everyone accepted and loved Diana’s silent/passive status
She was allowed to be gorgeous
No one ever associated her with that colonial stain
There are moments in the recent Winne Mandela documentary
that stand out to me
where she buried her face in her hands and screamed out
I’ve been betrayed
the other moment was went she said she was
the only ANC member brought to TRC
and made to testify
Nelson Mandela forgave a nation
but he could never forgive her.
What was done to Winnie is done to other Black women
and working artists
Black women fighting to give language/resistance
but it only matters when a celebrity says or does it.
At Cape Coast Castle in Ghana after you’ve passed
The Door of No Return
there is a plaque donated to the Castle by Black tribal elders
It reads:
May we never sell ourselves into slavery again
But it is Again.

■

After All Is Said and Done

Maybe you thought I would forget
about the sunrise
how the moon stayed in the morning
time a lower lip
your partly open partly spoken
mouth

Maybe you thought I would exaggerate
the fire of the stars
the fire of the wet wood burning by
the waterside
the fire of the fuck the sudden move
you made me make
to meet you
(fire)

BABY
I do not exaggerate and
if
I could
I would.

■

Heartbeats

Work out. Ten laps.
Chin ups. Look good.

Steam room. Dress warm.
Call home. Fresh air.

Eat right. Rest well.
Sweetheart. Safe sex.

Sore throat. Long flu.
Hard nodes. Beware.

Test blood. Count cells.
Reds thin. Whites low.

Dress warm. Eat well.
Short breath. Fatigue.

Night sweats. Dry cough.
Loose stools. Weight loss.

Get mad. Fight back.
Call home. Rest well.

Don’t cry. Take charge.
No sex. Eat right.

Call home. Talk slow.
Chin up. No air.

Arms wide. Nodes hard.
Cough dry. Hold on.

Mouth wide. Drink this.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

No air. Breathe in.
Breathe in. No air.

Black out. White rooms.
Head hot. Feet cold.

No work. Eat right.
CAT scan. Chin up.

Breathe in. Breathe out.
No air. No air.

Thin blood. Sore lungs.
Mouth dry. Mind gone.

Six months? Three weeks?
Can’t eat. No air.

Today? Tonight?
It waits. For me.

Sweet heart. Don’t stop.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

■

Book X

The cypresses reached the clouds. The clouds ran
like stockings. The cypresses seemed
to woodfeather the roof
of my mouth when I was elsewhere
benerved. What I called my pleasure:
Elsewhere here. Her mouth
on me: tangerine pulp. Words came
as ants synapsing to syrup. Each,
inadequate. Each, everything. She gave me
her tongue. She gave me a way
to refuse and a way to yes the world
in brisk barter. She gave me the sweetmeats
of power surrendered
and power offered. The Garden was prolific
in wild invasives. Yes, in knowledge —
I made a kudzu rope
to bind my wrists
to my desire
and to unbind my future
from a pluperfect past. The tense
present in I am without I am.
I believe in God as a knot
that knows how to untie itself.
From this knowledge, a secret fruited
known as a bruise
to thumb the touch apparent.

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