listen mother, he punched the air: I am not your son dying
the day fades and the starlings roost: a body’ s a husk a nest of goodbye
his wrist colorless and soft was not a stick of chewing gum
how tell? well a plastic bracelet with his name for one. & no mint
his eyes distinguishable from oysters how? only when pried open
This is what our dying looks like.
You believe in the sun. I believe
I can't love you. Always be closing,
Said our favorite professor before
He let the gun go off in his mouth.
I turned 29 the way any man turns
In his sleep, unaware of the earth
Moving beneath him, its plates in
Their places, a dated disagreement.
Let's fight it out, baby. You have
Only so long left — a man turning
In his sleep — so I take a picture.
I won't look at it, of course. It's
His bad side, his Mr. Hyde, the hole
We want pictures of everything
Below your waist, and we want
Pictures of your waist. We can't
Talk right now, but we will text you
Into coitus. All thumbs. All bi
Coastal and discreet and masculine
And muscular. No whites. Every
Body a top. We got a career
To think about. No face. We got
Kids to remember. No one over 29.
No one under 30. Our exes hurt us
Into hurting them. Disease free. No
Drugs. We like to get high with
The right person. You
Got a girl? Bring your boy.
They lie like stones and dare not shift. Even asleep, everyone hears in prison.
Dwayne Betts deserves more than this dry ink for his teenage years in prison.
In the film we keep watching, Nina takes Darius to a steppers ball.
Lovers hustle, slide, and dip as if none of them has a brother in prison.
I eat with humans who think any book full of black characters is about race.
A book full of white characters examines insanity — but never in prison.
I was born in Boston in
1949. I never wanted
this fact to be known, in
fact I’ ve spent the better
half of my adult life
trying to sweep my early
years under the carpet
and have a life that
was clearly just mine
and independent of
the historic fate of
my family. Can you
imagine what it was
like to be one of them,
to be built like them,
to talk like them
to have the benefits
of being born into such
a wealthy and powerful
American family. I went
to the best schools,
Please! Keep
reading me
Blake
because you’ re going to make
me the greatest
poet of
all time
Keep smoothing
the stones in the
driveway
let me fry an egg
on your ass
& I’ ll pick up
the mail.
I feel your
absence in
the morning
& imagine your
instant mouth
let me move
in with you —
Travelling
wrapping your limbs
on my back
I grow man woman
Child
I see wild wild wild
Soon I shall take more
I will get more light
and I'll know what I think
about that
I was 6 and
I lost my snake.
The table shook
I can do better
than this
and shambled
to the kitchen
to the scene
of the crime
I was green
I put my sneaker
down, little shoe
I felt the cold
metal tap
my calf
moo and everything
began to change.
I am 6
turned into lightning
wrote on the night
At 6, I was feathers
scales, I fell into
the slime of it, lit
Night, the fat serpent, slipped among the plants,
Intent upon the apples of his eyes;
A heavy bandoleer hung like a prize
Around his neck, and tropical red ants
Mounted his body, and he heard advance,
Little by little, the thin female cries
Of mortar shells. He thought of Paradise.
Such is the vision that extremity grants.
The work has been going forward with the greatest difficulty, chiefly because I cannot concentrate. I have no feeling about whether what I am writing is good or bad, and the whole business is totally without excitement and pleasure for me. And I am sure I know the reason. It’ s that I can’ t stand leaving unresolved my situation with Pat. I hear from her fairly frequently, asking when I plan to come back, and she knows that I am supposed to appear at the poetry reading in the middle of January. It is not mainly loneliness I feel, though I feel it; but I have been lonely before.
