by Kevin Young
Latifah’s Law. Electric Relaxation.
Buddy buddy. 93 ’Til Infinity.
Vainglorious. Passing me by.
WHEN YOU WERE MINE
Nothing passed us by. Baby,
you’re much too fast. In 1990
we had us an early 80s party—
nostalgic already,
I dug out my best
OPs & two polos, fluorescent,
worn simultaneously—
collar up, pretend preppy.
When Blondie came on—
Rapture, be pure—
things really got going & then
the dancing got shut down
by some square.
What was sleep even for?
HOUSEQUAKE
What was sleep even for?
The year before, a freshman, I threw
a Prince party, re-screwed
the lights red & blue—
the room all purple, people
dancing everywhere—clicked
PLAY on the cassette till
we slow-sweated to Erotic
City, or Do Me Baby. I’m going down
to Alphabet Street. Did anyone
sleep alone that night? I Feel
For You. Shut up already, damn—
cabbage patch, reverse running man—
get some life wherever you can.
POTHOLES IN MY LAWN
This life. I confess we did look
somewhat alike, Kenny & I—
baby dreads, tortoiseshells, tight fade—
though that night his giant white roommate
drunk on 8 Ball in the pool room
called out Kenny, Kenny, even when
I said I’m not him & he began
cursing me out—Quit pretending—
that was too much. Dopplegangers,
unblood brothers, we should have done
more with it—dressed as the other
for Halloween, chanced
an evil twin movie. No dice.
Instead we danced, side by side.
THREE IS THE MAGIC NUMBER
Twins to the rhythm, we danced,
as one does—to the remix of Three
Is the Magic Number—at a house party
someone threw just because.
We were black then, about to be
African American, so folks schoolhouse rocked
& smurfed whenever we damn well pleased.
We should have done more, or believed,
mon frère, mine own body double—
given the campus cops the slip
whenever they quizzed or frisked us
for studying while black. Kenny,
I hope you’re somewhere
far from here, dancing away trouble.
RING THE ALARM [ DUB MIX ]
Far from here, dancing away troubles,
Philippe & I nod & bob & start
to skank in the underground club
in London, the dub
so loud across the gigantic room
we feel it in our lungs.
We were never young.
Even then in the bass & boom—
the DJ’s fits & starts, the woofer’s glottal
guttural gasp, our ganja-throated rasp—
we were old, though not enough
to know. That time he sat silent for hours
in the corner, high on soul flower? You’re
messing up my plan, all he could say, after.
SOUL FLOWER [ BRAND NEW HEAVIES ]
Afterwards, what can I say, unplanned,
a decade later, he was dead. Forget friends;
brothers. Forget it all except how
the sun is coming up now
between the buildings—
is it night, or morning—
dawn coming on, we hated
leaving any party early. I hate
having to write what
can never capture how thin
everything was then—
the beer, or warm cider,
or us—yet strong enough, son,
to get the job done.
I NEED LOVE
I get the job done, baby,
I work. Nobody
can rap quite like
I can. I’ll take
you there. Ain’t no
half steppin. Ain’t no-
body. Ain’t too proud
to beg. Ain’t no
mountain high enough.
It’s only mountains.
And the sea. See
what you done done?
I’m so tired of being alone.
I wonder if I take you home.
FAST CAR [ TRACY CHAPMAN ]
Taking her home those weeks
of winter break, dorm snowed in, no one
around but us, I’d ask
her, late, to sing to me alone.
Here in Subcity, life is hard—
naked behind her guitar
she’d do her best Tracy Chapman,
twin bed her smallest stage. Please give
the President my honest regards. We’d fall
asleep in her room—bedframe
narrow as a grave—but not quite
in love. Our huddled nights
wouldn’t survive the thaw,
snow gone too soon, & far.
U GOT THE LOOK
Gone too soon, there was that season
when all the ladies’ bras
bloomed suddenly fancy because
by midnight we knew everyone
would be shirtless, one
giant groove, swaying along
to Gett Off, or Funky Drummer
(Parts 1 & 2), or Sexy M.F.—
all innocent somehow, beauty
on the installment plan.
At least till the horns swoop in.
This ain’t about the body
it’s about the mind.
Yours, or mine?
WHEN DOVES CRY
Yours or mine? From this
great a distance
I cannot tell which Prince
records are my father’s
& which I bought alone. Pop hated Prince
at first, said he couldn’t sing, nor dance.
(Then again, neither could he.) Once
Purple Rain dropped, I flew home from France
& he asked, Have you heard this?
The spool of the car’s tape deck
& it’s the chorus: This is
what it sounds like. Sneaky devil,
maybe I’m just like my father,
my mother silent in the car.
I WOULD DIE 4 U
My mother silent all the way
home, not knowing what to say
or sing. Me, mugged in Paris two days
before & then, Easter Sunday,
a knife pulled on us
high schoolers from Kansas
on the metro to Notre Dame, always
mispronounced. How I prayed
the entire ride, saw the madman’s
pockets blooming blades. Take Me
With U. After, at madrigals the psalms
barely came. My folks’ marriage
even my father’s newfound love
of Prince couldn’t save.
LITTLE WING
Save us. So late & still
our sophomore roo
mmate
has decided to pull
out his guitar, plug in & play
Little Wing, just the first bars,
over & over, take anything
you want from me, till we only
want him to finish, to get, for once,
to the end. Years later,
he’ll kill himself—I still don’t
know how, much less fathom
why. Carey Monserrate,
last name a mountain,
play for us again.
ALL THAT I GOT IS YOU [ RADIO EDIT ]
Play it again: soon all will be gone, the places
I’ve known; Elsie’s, The Tasty, Tommy’s Lunch
replaced by lobster & prix fixe brunch.
The cobbler one day disappears like the very
word cobbler. My dry cleanser now does shoe repair.
One Potato Two Potato. That druggist I never
went to. Slowly every bookstore shut down
or moved—Star, McIntyre & Moore—
put out like lights. After 180 Years We’re Closing
Our Doors. Even the Wursthaus—its food
earning its name—I miss avoiding, proving
yourself no more a tourist. If lucky we leave
not just a place but a name. Soon, all gone:
Tommy’s, The Tasty, Elsie’s, me.
BUNGLE IN THE JUNGLE
Me, Thomas, & everyone
crammed into his room bright
as a club at closing for the Bungle
in the Jungle, that party whose goal
was to get as naked as possible
without going the whole way. I came,
not literally, in silkish green paisley
boxers, little else. Shoes, maybe.
Once we blew the bass
blasting Respect or Groove
Is in the Heart, Thomas shouts
To the pool! & the parade
heads thataway, a hundred Adams
& Eves splashing, making waves.
FISHERMAN’S BLUES [ THE WATERBOYS ]
Making waves, I was just plugging in
a boombox when the counselor
came & screamed Kevin—
get these people out of here. Later
the pool sprung an unlikely leak,
got closed for good & ill & us.
Later still I’d climb down with Seamus—
no shallows—to watch a different play
with my roommate far more nude
confessing in Act Two, a-swim in a giant suit,
than the first when he was mad Sweeney
cursed naked & muddy in a tree.
Nice allegory, offered Heaney. Far was fate
it felt; how could we know how late?
THE LAST DAY OF OUR ACQUAINTANCE
How late it would get.
Every party
was an after-party.
Some nights we’d even let
ourselves forget that dawn
would soon come. I do not want
what I haven’t got. Mostly it did.
Sometimes the morn was met
less alone, her beauty & scent,
her buzzed head numbing your arm.
Once you start, how can you quit
all this remembering? We make
love like memories, if lucky
& not too late.
THE CHOICE IS YOURS
Too late. The silence, ours,
now sounds like the second
when the music stops—
not for good, but for a breath
or two, engine engine
number nine on the New York
transit line, if my train
jumps off the track—
& now we’re back up.
O how high we jump.
Reaching for the sky
hurricane-purple & a night
mostly black, dark blue, red.
Nobody, nobody, was dead. Yet—
Ode to Ol Dirty Bastard
F you. Motor
mouth, clown
of class warfare,
welfare millionaire—
how dare you disappear
when we need your
shimmy shimmy ya
here. Osirus
of this shiznit, your body’s
now scattered
on wax. No monument,
no fortune left—
just what you made
& spent, I hope, on skunk
weed & worse. Good
morning heartache.
Your carelessness
reminds us how
quick we are
to judge, how
serious things
done become. Dirty
as the south, sweet
as neon cherry pie
filling from a can.
I hear folks still call
your number in Brooklyn
all hours
& ask the sleepy, still
listed Russell Jones
(no relation)
come out & play.
Baby, I got
your money.
Big Baby Jesus, Dirt
McGirt, alias-addict—
of course you can’t
be reached—
you’re too busy, Rusty,
wigging out, dancing
in a humpsuit & jheri curl
toupee, your tiny,
tacky dreads
hidden, your grill
of gold melted
down to pay off
St. Pete, or Beezlebub,
to buy just one more
dose of freedom.
FOUR
The Crescent Limited
B. B. King Plays Oxford, Mississippi
A poetry where Saturday night
meets Sunday morning,
a midnight music,
a crossroads sound—
coming home from the juke
& heading right to church
for sunrise service
& maybe catch a bit
of that communion wine.
Butterbeans.
You know I’m from Mississippi
I do carry a knife.
Everybody wants to go to heaven
but nobody wants to die
to get there.
Time to go
a little further
up the alley—
I got a good mind
to give up living
& go shopping instead
to pick out a tombstone
& be
pronounced dead.
Bass
Where was the music from?
The bass that woke my son
sleeping in his room, mom
out of town,
so alone
I’d sung him home.
He was just about down
when the beat began
faraway, filling our noses
& chests like morning
coffee, which I don’t take any
kind of way—though black
is what you can say
when they ask
& they will. Brown boy,
head back & dream.
An hour later his busy brain
stirs him again,
descending the steep
; stairs to ask to sleep
beside me on the couch,
cat-curled, quieted
at last. I rise
& search the windows to see
if I might spot the sound—
still going, louder now,
its thin thunder
reaching me, everywhere,
even here.
Triptych for Trayvon Martin
NOT GUILTY [ A FRIEZE FOR SANDRA BLAND ]
Because the night has no
number, because
the thunder doesn’t
mean rain
Because maybe
Because we must
say your names
& the list grows
longer & more
endless
I am writing this:
you are no gun
nor holster, no
finger aimed, thumb
a hammer cocked
back, all the way—
I refuse
to bury you, to inter
your name in earth
or to burn you back
to bone, to what
we all know, the soft
song of your skull
as an infant, the place
God or your mother
or same thing
left untouched
by hands—
that halo grown whole
till they said you weren’t—
said that Death
could be your breath—
could be a body
or less—& you
grew more black
& blue.
I refuse
to watch. I refuse.
Not guilty. Not
guilty. I know you
will stay & rise
like the sea—
the tide
all salt & shifting.
Don’t ever leave.
LIMBO [ A FRESCO FOR TAMIR RICE ]
Skeleton-still,
we stood. Those
before us who
Believed, arrayed
like statues, trophies
of the child killed