A Fortune for Your Disaster

by Hanif Abdurraqib

  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.