the fried chicken that I swore an oath to stray from
for the sake of my heart and its blood labor.
Still, there is something about the way a grease stain begins small and then tiptoes
its way along the fabric of my pants. Here, finally, a country worth living in.
One that falls thick from whatever it is we love so much
that we can’t stop letting it kill us. If we must die, let it be inside here. If we must.
THE GHOST OF MARVIN GAYE PUTS A SEASHELL TO HIS EAR AND HEARS A MOAN FROM THE LAST WOMAN HE LOVED
Funny how they ain’t teach us how to unwrite a song
once it pulls the twilight down and makes a mess
of the tangled limbs. My skin, a different kind of blue
than the one that gave birth to my American lineage.
My skin, under the spotlight of any stage,
is what made me less hunter and more prey. I understand
the language of wetness. The way sound searches for a mother
—as we all do once we are coughed into the ache
of a dry and loveless interior. What some called hallucination
I called a sunrise. A morning with another set of legs
to free myself from. And they ain’t teach that either. That was all me. None
of the shit people say feels like drowning
actually does.
MAN IT’S SO HARD NOT TO ACT RECKLESS
You cannot serve / two masters / unless they both crave / the same riches / I serve every master / who arrives empty / to my door / I guess I should’ve forgotten / where I came / from / all of my idols died / because they took too much / of something into themselves / must be the pharaohs / niggas ain’t make it out the hood / to be buried with only / the dirt / they came out of / heaven’s gate / is a suicide door / my mama couldn’t get through / get fly to get fly / darkness swallowing the afternoon / and still / no one to go home with tonight / except the shadows & / some have teeth / how he stay faithful / in a room / full of ghosts / I am double parked / sideways / outside the collapse / of a country & / didn’t nobody here / fuck with me / ever since my name / became my name / & now I’m too bad / to be governed / by anything sent / from the tip of any devil’s / finger / I’m serious / nigga / I’m talking like / it’s just me / it’s just the mirror / & a day where I am loved / by no one / & if not for our small / rituals / how would we get out / of the house / the question I ask / of the sun slouching / its way in / through the gapped / teeth of morning / is what of myself / I have to sew back / together / in order to face / the aching & vanishing landscape / ain’t a bank account / big enough / for the particular nightmare / in which the world ends / except for the corner of it / where you live / with the person you stopped loving / wait till I get my / money / wait till I get / my nothing / right / I couldn’t tell you / who decides wars.
HOW CAN BLACK PEOPLE WRITE ABOUT FLOWERS AT A TIME LIKE THIS
when i tell him about the threat at my doorstep,
the childhood homie thumbs the blue lip
of his waistband & says these niggas don’t want no smoke
& i suppose that is true, though i do recall
the wooden underbelly of the incense holder
& how, before it began to fade, it was adorned
with orchids, which were carved into it by hand
& it was carried across an ocean by someone a man loved
enough to call brother despite their sharing no history beyond their necks
craned over the Quran & the women who wanted
so desperately for them to come to bed.
it is impossible to name the blood leashed to your own until you,
like the orchid, fold into anything outside with skin
close enough to yours & sprout a newer & more violent
body. it is impossible to know what you’d kill
for until you hold a face in your two hands
underneath a streetlight on a block where killing pays
the rent. where, as a boy, i would pluck the incense
from its plastic & place it in the tight ring
of the incense holder’s mouth & my father would sing
the call to prayer while the white smoke plumed & divided
into siblings with each syllable & so i think it is true
that niggas don’t want no smoke if by that i am saying niggas
don’t want to be a memory or niggas don’t want to have their name blown
from their father’s lips in a prayer of forgetting. i tell the homie
not to bring guns to my resting place. someone i love is sleeping here tonight.
& i remember us as young, his mother in a hospital bed holding both of our faces & saying
you boys have to remember to always take care of each other.
IT OCCURS TO ME THAT I AM LOVED MOST FOR THE THINGS I REFUSE
to do out of anger / or lust / or whatever keeps me up at night / what I like most / about rage / is that it moves / an animal / of the body’s own / fashioning / the leash on mine / is so fly / it makes the animal itself / invisible / in the religion / I found myself born into / and then tasked with / restraint was a currency / I imagine this / is why my therapist / knows where / her next meal / is coming from / you are what you / don’t / eat / is the joke I tell / while I push the bacon / to the side of the plate / and this is all / I have in common / with my father / I am most romantic / when I let a fist fall / limp at my side / I’m still yelling / put some respect / on whatever my name sounds like / out of the mouths / of your white friends / put some respect on the hood / in which I am a target / put a thick gold chain on the neck / of the statue I am building / for the man who worked / shining shoes / for forty years / kneeling for people / who tossed him coins / without speaking / put some coins in the fountain / that the statue will rest in / immovability is a type of reparations / the inspirational speaker asks us to imagine / that we can become anything / I ask him to imagine that anything / can become us.
THE PRESTGE
The thing about not watching my mother get old is that I wasn’t never sure what I was gonna get, cause if you don’t got yr folks to look at, if all you got to look at is a picture of a woman standing beside a cactus, a picture took by a man who weren’t ever really your daddy, then you don’t got a good idea really of where yr headed. When I seen her bones I knew what we all knew, that we’s all gonna end up in a grave someday, but there’s stops in between there and now.
—SUZAN-LORI PARKS
LIGHTS OUT TONIGHT, TROUBLE IN THE HEARTLAND
and besides, by the time this ends, you will have forgotten what drew you here in the first place. the volta here is the prey, standing in the stomach of a hollow cavern with a dying predator in its mouth. the way I showed up to the basketball court on scottwood with the blood of my grade-school tormenter adorning my white kicks, and then went a year without having to make a fist. I hear violence is unbecoming, but in the moment it is all I have to throw over both of our shoulders. In the teeth of my beloved, I am being dragged, coughing, to the center of a field that sprouts my mother’s favorite flower. Each of them comes out of the ground dying. Do you get it now? No matter how beautiful a child illustrates it, the actual heart is an ugly machine. A hideous chorus of chambers. It gets what it deserves.
NO DIGGITY
Shorty get / down / good lord / and yes the lord / is good / the lord is / as lonely / as I feel / in the darkness / of a strange city / and the lord / points / me to the light / I say twice on Sunday / and mean I see a savior / in everyone / my niggas say we come / from kings / and they mean / our fathers / have blood / on their hands / they mean / someone had to die / for the money in our pockets / money which tonight / is fanned out / like the wings of a hunting / falcon / across the face / of a counter / at a fried-chicken joint / where they serve / what our mothers taught us / how to cook in their kitchens / what our mothers learned / from their mothers / and their mothers before them / and
so we are here / in honor of the first / black / woman / to drop anything / in hot oil / in honor of the first / black / woman / to prepare a feast / for a family / while her own children / held their aching / and hollow stomachs / in honor of this / I will be fed / by someone else’s hands / tonight / I will laugh at the bad / joke / I will say make love / and mean the sound / an open palm makes / when it slaps a table / while holding a card / and the fate of an entire / night’s humor / everyone I roll with / is not above taking / into ourselves / that which will one day / kill us / something fried / to praise / in the name of our small / and generous lords / I say twice on Sunday / and mean I stay one foot / in the grave / with the flyest / kicks on / I mean / I’m back on my bullshit / I’m back in my feelings / again / and I think / I’m going to stay / this time / everything I miss / is a monument / I cannot see through / and yet / a small child / smiles at me / from over / their mother’s back / and I name the child / after all of you / I build them a small / future / and listen / if I am being honest / I am weary tonight / of giving the bullet / more space than the living / tonight I want a meal / I could have made / in my own kitchen / with my mother’s arms / over my shoulders / tonight I want no love / that doesn’t crumble / and stain every part of me / it echoes through / tonight / I will watch the stars rust / in the arms of no one / turns out / daylight is the new / misery / and I am drowning / I am drowning / I am drowning / party’s over boys / where we going / for breakfast
THE GHOST OF MARVIN GAYE MISTAKES A RECORD STORE FOR A GRAVEYARD
they burned the disco records
and from the smoke I heard
my mother’s voice or was it
that my father once wore
my mother’s dresses spun in front of a mirror
the music he tried to pray out of himself
memory is as fleeting as any other high
never tell anyone you love them
with the lights off or with a halo of lipstick
around the edges of a bedsheet
staining the gospel
or was it that my father simply loved
when my mother pushed a boy out to be given
his name in every reflection of myself
a father’s violence gaping
when the women called to me
in any bedroom the walls opened up bullet holes
like the small mouths of boystrying to sing along to hymns
on Saturday mornings from the cornersof their mother’s best dress it is funny
how even a trick of the ears can turnhearing a weapon
a night in London they yelled
marvin / marvin / marvin
and I saw devils hanging
at the end of every curtain
NONE OF MY BLACK FRIENDS WANT TO LISTEN TO DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’
but we all know what it is when the street / light comes on
& I don’t mean to romanticize darkness but I do perhaps mean to say
I want to dance in the moments before the sunset lets me out
of its clutches & fear carves a crib into the pit
of some mother’s stomach. The news says that soon
it’s going to feel like summer all year & then what
will we make of winter & the way nighttime gallops in
before our bodies are ready to lie down with each other
& I know. I hear you thinking there he goes again.
But let me promise you that this time it really is just about a song
& the coins rattling in my pocket & the way they beg to be pushed
into a jukebox when the sky is a color that demands singing
& nothing else. But if you will indulge me—since you are
still here—I will say the words
hold on to that feeling & the wind might blow the shadow
of someone you miss through your outstretched fingers.
I don’t know anymore what it is we are all reaching for, but here
we are & somewhere along the line we learned the difference
between the gospel that will keep us out of hell & the shit they play
to wake up the polo shirts in suburban pews & I say we & you already know
I mean those of us who have reached for a song & pulled back a coffin
& we don’t sing our gospel in bars. We don’t sing where we sin.
We don’t lock arms and wake up a hood that ain’t ours,
where they call the cops if a leaf rattles outside a window past midnight
& this is why I hang back under the flickering street / light
& listen to the hum of rusting air conditioners buzzing in late November
& maybe all the songs we don’t want to sing out loud anymore
are about someone on a porch, wringing their hands together
& hoping a person who shares their blood cuts
through the night & walks into their arms.
HOW CAN BLACK PEOPLE WRITE ABOUT FLOWERS AT A TIME LIKE THIS
& it turns out
lineage is the most
vicious stunt of them all
name me after the first
hands to shake the dirt
off my arms & lay diamonds
on my wrist or name me after the pistol
kept in the nightstand of a free
man who wasn’t afraid to use it
you get what I’m saying
name me for the bride
I crane my neck toward
each time she runs the pitch-
black gospel choir back into town
imperial in my stunt gold
all in my mouth
so I talk that shit
them white folk shook the hills down
for & now they can’t keep my seeds
out the air or earth
& even the hollow shells
of them can close a throat
before it starts to play me for a fool
look I’m crowning so wide
I got enough shade to feed ten summers
& ten porches of women fanning
themselves with the old testament
& leaning in for the good gossip
& whispering don’t you know there are whole
fields on fire still & I take my reparations
in the almost fading blond petals twirling off the black
stem like when nina sang pirate jenny
& the song became about a slave ship
name me after the last nigga
who held the apocalypse in their palms
& rocked it to sleep
for long enough to throw
one more drink on the tab
or the first nigga to have an address everywhere
but one rent check
I’m too fly to haunt anything
but my own reflection &
so when I’m gone I’m gone &
the most vicious stunt of all is how this was your language first
IT’S NOT LIKE NIKOLA TESLA KNEW ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE WERE GOING TO DIE
if man is not supposed to play
God then
why did God make dying look
so beautiful.
I guess there were no bullets
& so the nails
had to suffice & in defense
of lightning
there is always a darkness
asking to be
split open. as a boy, I saw an
electric tongue
dance along the oak tree
outside my window
& the two halves held
themselves together
by three wooden threads
for years & I grew
to imagine them as hands
nailed to each
other & I may have once
whispered I want
a love like that into the empty
space—severed but
forgiving. don’t you know
they bury men
like me alive with all o
f our
sentimental longing.
Tesla said there are no great
inventions made by
married men but then how
do you explain
the way the space in between
bodies in a shared
bed can feel like an entire
country? I’m saying
that all inventions come
at the cost of a room
becoming something
different than it was.
a boy who imagines himself
alone falls from an abandoned
skyscraper & halves the sky
& there is nothing up there
that will hold any of us
together & darling I think
I’ve got it—I can tell
Magic from science by
whether or not
there is a body
in the casket.
WHAT A MIRACLE THAT OUR PARENTS HAD US WHEN THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN A PUPPY INSTEAD
i guess it is good to know you are needed by something that won’t outgrow you. or that won’t learn a name to call you outside of. i am back to wearing sweaters in summer. it’s a question of intimacy. that which will do the work of love for those who have grown weary of loving me. every four years in america it becomes fashionable to make promises you can’t keep and so here i am again. i tell you that i will try to make it to your brunch/reading/karaoke night and then i draw a blanket over my chest and look to see who will deliver me something warm. i hold a face in my palms and turn it toward a field of sunflowers, their bright ridges arched into the night’s humid mouth. i say i will always be here, as i am now and the true lie is that time doesn’t already have its talons in all of our backs, pulling a younger version of ourselves thrashing to the gates after each passing hour. i am lying, too, about my dog and what the years have done to her. i am lying about this though I see the way she eyes the flight of steps at the entrance to our home. she makes it up them, yes, but then gasps over a water bowl. nothing is like it was in the old days, they say. everything outside is dying easier. melting. the answer to thirst as our undoing. i take up whatever space i must and apologize later. in the mirror, i am already vanishing. it’s the need to be loved that we’ll all miss most. my dog doesn’t always run when i call her name. i don’t always reply to my father’s texts.
A Fortune for Your Disaster Page 4