Autopsy
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i bet if they knew we hid beneath the bridges they built they would tear those down
AUTOPSY
AUTOPSY
POEMS BY
Donte Collins
© 2017 by Donte Collins
Published by Button Poetry / Exploding Pinecone Press
Minneapolis, MN 55403 | http://www.buttonpoetry.com
All Rights Reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cover Design: Nikki Clark
Author Photograph: Marlen Boro
ISBN 978-1-943735-11-2
Ebook ISBN 9781943735259
Every word is for my late mother Mary Lou Collins & anyone who has ever helped us carry in the groceries
The most beautiful part of your body is where it’s headed.
– OCEAN VUONG, “SOMEDAY I’LL LOVE OCEAN VUONG”
…And my family go through it with me We lost a lot, all I feel is empty.
– LAMAR COLLINS, FACEBOOK
If you aren’t able to describe it, you will not be able to survive it.
– JAMES BALDWIN, THE CROSS OF REDEMPTION: UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS
DEATH AIN’T NOTHIN’ BUT A SONG
my mother moved out
of her body decided it
was no longer worthy
it couldn’t contain her laughter
she couldn’t obey the house
rules of human her spirit
that young & fresh fever wanted
to call the night her dance club
wanted to try on new clothes
stay out later
my mother now wears the world
dresses herself with the tall grass
blushes her cheeks with red clay
she laughs & a forest fire awakens
she laughs & every mountain bows
to her sharp thunder she laughs
& each cicada begins to sing last
night Saint Paul was cloaked in steam:
fog traveled from some distant heat
no, i think you’ve got it all wrong
someone must have asked my mother
to dance
CONTENTS
Death Ain’t Nothin’ but a Song
Don’t Tell Your Uber Driver You’re Going to an Orgy
Sonnet on Sweet
[Definitions]
Other Things They Would Have Found
The Orphan Performs an Autopsy on the Garden
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Thirteen
Grief: The Inconvenient Translator
Old Rondo - Age 16
What the Dead Know by Heart
The Orphan Performs an Autopsy on Old Rondo
Whiteness Shops for a Prayer
The Orphan Performs an Autopsy on the National Anthem
New Country
The Orphan Dines with Ghosts
In Which the Orphan’s Sister Is Murdered Six Months after His Mother’s Death
Five Stages of Grief
Grief, Again
Teething: A Crumbling Pantoum
Alphabet Soup
The Orphan Performs an Autopsy on Adoption
Alternate Beginning: The Game
Adoption Day: Homecoming, 1998
To Keep from Saying Orphan
Grief Sestina
Long Story Short
Acknowledgments
About the Author
DON’T TELL YOUR UBER DRIVER YOU’RE GOING TO AN ORGY
besides, her name is diane & she only has this job
because her niece says she should be more social
do not, nervously, try to cover up your mistake by
saying you meant b-oar-d mee-tin-g. besides, it’s
3 a.m. & the only things open this late
can
also
request
another
thing
to
open
do not try to cancel the ride. it is not your account. those who
sent for your body were kind enough to pay the $15.50 it took
for you to arrive. your nails are already too jagged to chew on
you’ve produced enough sweat to fill the vehicle & drown
you both. you consider headphones. you consider ripping out
your tongue in fear of confessing more & before you reach for
the handle to tuck & roll clean out of her 2004 Honda Civic
she says:
how many
bodies will you try on tonight / & suddenly she is your mother
or her ghost
& suddenly your blood stiffens / retreats / rewinds / no one died
the casket
is still just wood / unchopped / reassembled / the tree, resurrected
working &
grief is not yet a garden of thorns blooming
in your chest
& grief is not yet a question you’ve answered with sex
the slow
teasing out of sweat like loose thread unraveling
your sadness
& look: you’re just a boy / grieving until he too is a thing
to grieve / until
his pulse is as thin & damp as an obituary panting beneath quaking
hands & what
is an orgy, if not the opposite
of a funeral, if not an attempt to
press your
pulse to as many strangers as possible: to compare
how alive
you still are. & isn’t the car now your mother’s hearse / parading
her body
to that freshly gutted plot of earth & suddenly you are the driver
/ suddenly
the sky breaks a sweat / its whole body blue & ballooning wet
but you’re also the casket
but you’re also the soggy grave parting its greedy
lips / you ghost
orphan / you motherless phantom considering the dive
following
your maker, buried alive / i know, you desire decay, donte
/ you desire
now, a way to die without losing your body: so why not use
it / why not let a stranger lick the grief from your palms & this too is eulogy
this too is prayer
& this too can water the seeds to conjure
thornless crops
can sing back alive whatever parts of you died
with her
whatever leapt into your mother’s closing crate
& diane slams the brakes. you have arrived she says be safe. his
apartment door: a pearly gate, a cliff overlooking a thrashing lake
& your blood begins & you lighthouse your tongue & you ship
wreck an entire room to driftwood. O this festival of lament
O this sloppy surgery, this homemade baptism. you reek of grief
they taste the salt streaming your cheek. you lonely riot, you laughing
graveyard. you hungry & haunted boy. i know, i know. you want
so badly to feel alive. you want so badly to be born
again
SONNET ON SWEET
after Tarell Alvin McCraney
back then they would have tied me to a post
gave the whip to the sweet boy i wrapped
my lips around until he wept the most
brackish prayer: he dripped like maple sap
each tthh-wack opens a small sky in my skin
he swin
gs softly & avoids my old welts
lynch say beat the slave out of the sin
so massa take pride in my lover’s help
can’t produce slaves if men lay with men
can’t run free when massa stole your feet
plantation can’t afford no cotton gin
when two black bucks is worth a pound of meat
so massa rubbed sugar sap in my scars
& left me till my black swelled bright as stars
orphan [ˈôrfən/]
i.e. the lawyer says: you are not orphans as long as you have each other i.e. like any good orphan, he took up gardening, attempts to forgive the earth i.e. the orphan mothers his own origin
autopsy [ˈôˌtäpsē]
i.e. they would have found dandelion seeds had they done the autopsy: they would have found a field of burning lavender had they cut her open
OTHER THINGS THEY WOULD HAVE FOUND
vineyard of charred candle wicks
fraying wicker broom
grocery bags of unopened letters
garage of rusting tap shoes
coffee-stained divorce papers
divorce papers stuffed in a shoebox
divorce papers framed on the wall
garden of swinging dandelions
basement brimming with box cutters
wedding ring singed beneath ash
wedding ring severed at the mouth
wedding ring bent into bobby pin
grocery bag of other rolled up grocery bags
an oak foot-powered sewing machine
two antique hair dryers
washboard & elbow grease
grocery bag of clean rags
forest of ripening plums
cupboard of chipped plates
collection of cast iron skillets
instructions on how to properly play sequence
rusted tin box spilling with recipes, receipts
court gavels: one for each child
ashtray of soot pennies
a badge & a bad hip
white flag stained red
two infant black girl hands,
extended: longing to be held
THE ORPHAN PERFORMS AN AUTOPSY ON THE GARDEN
there are many ways to pull a weed
but only one will keep the garden
clean come the end of summer
your mother will be dead
13 years - 2 months - 11 days - 7 hours from now
& you curse her beneath your breath. flick beaded sweat gathered
like pearls at the crease of your brow & continue to rip up the earth
why does heat make the body confess what it will not do otherwise?
drunk on july & nerve you rip handfuls of color from along the fence
thorns like brief alarms warning your fevered temper of what blood
will soon stain your teeth. never. ruin. your. mother’s. new. plants
your mother will be dead
3 years - 6 months - 9 hours from now
& a man, not your father, calls you baby. calls the house phone past
midnight. waits, like warm fog, outside your bedroom window, wants
to use your mouth to raise his children. why does heat make the body
confess what it will not do otherwise?
sneaking out of a house built of creaking wood can only end with
red smeared across checkered linoleum. can only cause a mother to
lock the doors from the outside. deadbolt & don’t disrespect my house
again! basement stairs & belt buckle branded—a birthmark across
your sprouting back. see me: a field of dry & rebellious wheat thrashing
until flaming. until ash
your mother will be dead
3 days - 6 hours - 14 minutes from now
& wants to take you to lunch. insists on giving you all your old inhalers,
face-cream, old shoes. says you never know. says if i died i wouldn’t
know what to do with all of this—points—the china cabinet, a small
museum of memories. says we laughed a lot, too. our faces framed &
frozen to happy. says if you & lamar don’t know i love you, know now
& now she is weeping. see her: a black sky cracking, offering water: as
if to say: forgiveness is a fertile thing—is what makes tomorrow grow
& / just / like / that / she’s / dead / a / porch / light / gone / out / a
wind / chime / songless / sunken / into / soil / you / untethered / 19
returning / to / an / empty / home / find / your / hands / busy / in
an / abandoned / garden / joy / must / be / a / flower / among / all
of / this / knotted / agony / there / are / many / ways / to / pull / grief
from / the / body / but / only / one / will / keep / the / boy / alive
THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT THIRTEEN
after Patricia Smith
they ask you to prove it: describe its pink perfectly
you are lying & looking down. you are thinking of
clever ways to creep out of the conversation. they
ask if you used a condom, you consider your op
tions. think it cool to say no because you’re too raw for
that. too axe cologne & black muscle shirt, more shirt than
muscle. more mask than masculine. you say soft, it felt
good, went in, one hour & the games begin. how straight
can you pretend to be? what new sex story can you
steal from t.v. & wear like padded muscles. you soft
knuckle boy with question marks for teeth. you lunch table
magician spinning tales from thin air. the thing about
masks is someone always sees the string behind your head
•
you knew what was coming if you slept past 8 a.m. &
if it wasn’t a cold bucket of water it would
have been the leather belt she kept soaking in the sink.
praise the mercy of your mother. praise the water that
awoke your still body from slumber. the sudden jolt
of relief in finding your drowning was just a dream
or, rather, just a moment. praise then, too, every soft
punishment: the gun-barrel stare, the one-leg-book-bal
ancing act in the corner, the rice cutting stars in
to your knees. praise the spatula & the upturned palm
the basement stairs & stale saltine crackers for dinner.
hosanna, the overgrown weeds & the tree switch that
refused to break. remember: this hurts her more than you
•
in class: when called on like a thief & something on you
stiffens, hardens & hangs like an ornament, like a
wooden plank & you must walk it to the front of the
room. your heart will become a drum, you will forget the
reason of your feet, your face will call your bluff, this is
the fifth time this week your body has become a bus
& swallowed you under it. there is no equation
for correcting an unwanted erection. walk with
hands hammered into the stitching of your pockets, pre
tend to be searching for the sun. set your binder be
fore your zipper & tap your thumb, play it cool, cock
your chin back, break no sweat. you soldier of study, you
bucket of brave, you Fruit of the Loom panic, got this!
•
possessed or bold, stealthy-like-hawk you steal a cigar
from your uncle’s jacket. nevermind he just got out
of prison & has a circus wire temper. you’ve
seen the way smoke bellows from his blackened lips & think
you, too, can make smoke rise, front flip up your throat & slide
down your nostrils. puff out a ring to slide on any
girl’s naked finger. too cool for school & too hot
for
curfew, you stuff your pants with a sock & learn to walk
chest puffed & panting. learn to show your teeth & drool with
out reason. gasoline for ego. bloodtype: ticking
preteen is a shirt too small for your budding muscles
you take the tattered lighter found on your way home from
school. light. inhale & keep the smoke safely in your cheeks
•
neon green skinny jeans. frohawk dyed hot cheeto red
the New Boyz just released Imma Jerk & 7th grade bursts
into a carnival of cut up khakis, spiked glass
es, clorox bleached goodwill bought polo shirts. we glue
glitter on frazzled, handmade capris & dance as if
trying to escape the devil. craft death-defying
routines of knee-drops & gliding. spend recess choosing
teams & battling to music made with our mouths. gen
der doesn’t exist when everyone wants to move their
hips, grind, prance. wobble & wear their sister’s tight denims
you: the class conductor, the color queen of rhythm
with Kool-Aid in your hair are finally free. have found
a way to squeeze faggotry into a year-long fad
•
you don’t clean to the same music you cook to. not
in this house, where everything is an antique & cloaked
in plastic. not when Janet’s I get so lonely comes
on, the perfect tempo to scrub the black ring from the
porcelain tub & Luther is wailing about loss
when you got fresh collards cackling on the stove. you
don’t cook while you clean unless you want a hint of
Pine-Sol in the peach cobbler. unless you enjoy the
roundabout task of making a mess after wiping
one up. this is my first lesson in first impressions:
bleach the countertop until it reflects the ceiling
fan, season the chicken until it glistens, set the
good plates, scrub like jesus christ is coming to dinner
•
somewhere they’re sagging their pants & language into slang
they’re resting their tongues in the mouths of a daughter, some
where a mother becomes a bitch by definition