Money in mattresses
So to sleep on decisions.
Some of their children
Were not their children. Some
Of their parents had no birthdates.
They could sweat a cold out
Of you. They’d wake without
An alarm telling them to.
Even the short ones reached
Certain shelves. Even the skinny
Cooked animals too quick
To catch. And I don’t care
How ugly one of them arrived,
That one got married
To somebody fine. They fed
Families with change and wiped
Their kitchens clean.
Then another century came.
People like me forgot their names.
II
The Ten Commandments
But I could be covetous. I could be a thief.
Could want and work for. Could wire and
Deceive. I thought to fool the moon into
A doubt. I did some doubting. Lord,
Forgive me. In New Orleans that winter,
I waited for a woman to find me shirtless
On her back porch. Why? She meant it
Rhetorically and hit me with open hands.
How many times can a woman say why
With her hands in the moonlight? I counted
Ten like light breaking hard on my head,
Ten rhetorical whys and half a moon. Half-
Nude, I let her light into me. I could be last
On a list of lovers Joe Adams would see,
And first to find his wife slapping the spit
Out of me. I could be sick and sullen. I could
Sulk and sigh. I could be a novel character
By E. Lynn Harris, but even he’d allow me
Some dignity. He loved black people too
Much to write about a wife whipping her rival
On a night people in Louisiana call cold.
He’d have Joe Adams run out back and pull
Her off of me. He wouldn’t think I deserved it.
Homeland
I knew I had jet lag because no one would make love to me.
All the men thought me a vampire. All the women were
Women. In America that year, black people kept dreaming
That the president got shot. Then the president got shot
Breaking into the White House. He claimed to have lost
His keys. What’s the proper name for a man caught stealing
Into his own home? I asked a few passengers. They replied,
Jigger. After that, I took the red-eye. I took to a sigh deep
As the end of a day in the dark fields below us. Some slept,
But nobody named Security ever believes me. Confiscated—
My Atripla. My Celexa. My Cortisone. My Klonopin. My
Flexeril. My Zyrtec. My Nasarel. My Percocet. My Ambien.
Nobody in this nation feels safe, and I’m still a reason why.
Every day, something gets thrown away on account of long
History or hair or fingernails or, yes, of course, my fangs.
Host
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.
We visiting. Room at the W.
Name’s D. Name’s J. We DeeJay.
We Trey. We Troy. We Q. We not
Sending a face. Where should we
Go tonight? You coming through? Please
Know what a gym looks like. Not much
Time. No strings. No place, no
Face. Be clean. We haven’t met
Anyone here yet. Why is it so hard
To make friends? No games. You
Still coming through? Latinos only.
Blacks will do. We can take one right
Now. Text it to you. Be there next
Week. Be there in June. We not a phone
Person. We can host, but we won’t meet
Without a recent pic and a real name
And the sound of your deepest voice.
Football Season
But the game includes killing
Boys in another country.
At the end of this beer,
I pay a tax, make sure
They’re dead. A man asks to change
The channel, unaware of his own safety.
Barflies look at him as if he’s spilled
The final pint of ale. Loneliness
Is a practice. Like medicine.
Like law, the law of the land
Live in twenty-four time zones.
The last man standing is
The first one alone. Which of us
Is too drunk to stagger
Home? Not me. I can drink
A few more, see the Patriots
Or the Cowboys or another
Very long war right
Here on this stool, watching
My money work for me, the heat
Up and me comfortable enough
To complain about it.
The Rest We Deserve
Our walls are thin, and the man who won’t say hello
Back to me in the morning as we lock ourselves out
Of our homes—won’t even nod my way as black men
Do when they see themselves in you—sings “Precious,
Precious,” the only song he must know, to the newborn
Other neighbors tell me is all he has left of a woman
Who died, went to rehab, or left him for another,
Depending on the fool telling the story and the time
Of day it gets told. I don’t know why it bothers me.
I don’t need him to love me the way he loves that child,
Pacing an apartment I imagine looks just like mine
With a baby in his arms, none of us allowed the rest
We deserve, him awful and off-key, her—is it a she?—
Shrill as any abandoned animal should be. I want
To hurt him, and I want to help. I think of knocking
To say he doesn’t have to be polite to me, but he should
Try stuffing the kid in a drawer and closing it; or
Knocking to show him the magic made when you sit
An infant in a car seat on top of a washer while you do
A little late-night laundry. Why do I think he owes me,
That all the words to Jackie Moore’s one hit make him
Mine enough not to mind some man he sees me kiss good-
Bye while he rolls his eyes, a baby strapped to his chest,
A tie around his neck, and me yawning because somebody
Wouldn’t let me sleep, everyone wishing any voice in this
Building could sing for the thing growing in the smallest
Of us when we open our mouths at odd hours to shriek?
What the Holy Do
for Previn Keith Butler (1978–2009)
Back when I was God, I had friends.
We wrote our own Bible
And got thrown out of church.
Then I saw one of us again—a man
Pushing into him
From behind. He turned
His final face to the camera
Like a teenager coming
Upon a pimple in the mirror.
The lonely worship alone.
I search out such filth in the cathedral
Of my home, but
this time,
With a sheet, I covered the screen.
That’s what the holy do to the body
After shutting its eyes,
And that’s this scribe’s last vision
Of another poorly recorded life
As I talk to myself in late July, dragging
A fan behind me like an oxygen tank.
Reality Show
An editor… wrote back that she liked the “Negro” poems best… requested that Gwendolyn [Brooks] approach Knopf again when she had more of these.
AMY SICKELS
NEWS
It is like a love for men, this
Love of language, and we are
Men at war, says the news.
No matter how long we speak
English, English means not
To count us or to count us
Darkly, but I know what
I want and so does channel 4.
They give it to me, one heap
After another: soldiers who,
Following another battle, shed,
Sweat, and spit like fountains.
THE HOUSEWIVES
All dese negroes calln us cute
But aint nobody tryna pay de light bill
Brothas on both coasts sayin Damn you
Sexy But not one payin dis light bill
Lettin de fine ones cop a feel
TALK SHOW
We can talk love
If you want,
Though I need fuel,
Need bread, bed,
And sex. I go
To my pocket
For change. One nickel
Fails me, so I find
Another, dead man
At my finger, monument
Against my thumb. Take,
For instance, our love.
Take or give it away,
Or sell it for all
I care, for the next
Nickel I pinch, not much
Money to debate or make
You stay long
Enough to turn on
The TV where we see
The real world done
And watch a man
Grin then run
A finger through
His enemy’s hair.
THE BACHELOR
All dese negroes swear Im cute
But none of em payin dis light bill
Liars in Lithonia and doctors in Detroit say
Damn you sexy But dey wont pay dis light bill
Still my ass go grinnin after each
Goldtoothed word
I can feel feel feel
Willing to Pay
It’s your face I wanted. Spent
Days at the dentist hoping
He’d hammer the smile right.
Your face and that thing
You do with your eyes
When I get you livid. Don’t be
Flattered. Don’t be afraid.
It’s 1979 or so. I’m known
To lie about my age. My parents
Are trying again. How’s that
For language, the moans
They made making me. If only
One of them lasted longer,
If they preferred the dog to some
Other position, then maybe I’d be
The same on both sides or
A babyface the rest of my life.
This is the night of a thousand
Noses. You want entertainment,
But how can I watch TV knowing
A guy cuter than me is getting paid
To wink, and I’m the one
Willing to pay? I wonder awhile
At football. At least, I’d have had
A lovely set of calves. Everybody
Who eats loves an athlete
Naked and newly showered.
What’s fair? You got the face
And the body and the cameras
Calling while I got you
Waiting for me to put the w
Behind the o in words like
Now. Now look, I bought you
Something else, something perfect
For hanging on that wall you wanted
Up. The painter did the damnedest
Job pulling your lips close to mine.
Dear Dr. Frankenstein
I, too, know the science of building men
Out of fragments in little light
Where I’ll be damned if lightning don’t
Strike as I forget one
May have a thief’s thumb,
Another, a murderer’s arm,
And watch the men I’ve made leave
Like an idea I meant to write down,
Like a vehicle stuck
In reverse, like the monster
God came to know the moment
Adam named animals and claimed
Eve, turning from heaven to her
As if she was his
To run. No word he said could be tamed.
No science. No design. Nothing taken
Gently into his hand or your hand or mine,
Nothing we erect is our own.
I want to relax, but it’s April.
My students cross and un-
Cross bare legs, one thigh,
In turn, holding the other
Down. Each limb,
Every stem on Earth
At battle, studded
With buds, all cocked
To win as the world
Splits into its stains. I live
With a disease instead
Of a lover. We take turns
Doing bad things
To my body, share a house
But do not speak. We eat
What I feed. Spring is a leg
And can’t be covered. One day,
I was born. That was long ago.
Motherland
Our mother swears the woman’s nose is wide enough
To dam the Red River.
Our mother says you could drain a swamp through
The gap in Angel’s teeth.
She’s too bottom-heavy for her clothes. Even in a housedress,
She looks like a whore fit for music videos.
Our mother keeps asking why so many music videos
Are filmed at pools and beaches.
Mama doesn’t care that Angel has two kids
Or that she dropped out of school before
Meeting my brother—and while I want someone
To say what a shame it is that she outdrinks
Our dad at Thanksgiving—Angel’s looks are all
Our mother will criticize, turning watery eyes
From my brother to me,
Pray my other boy won’t bring anybody as ugly home.
And I never do.
He was a fool for a tall woman, and Angel stood taller than him in any pair of shoes. He saw her the way children see the trees they climb, their mothers cussing down below.
After his car quit, I’d pick him up for work. He’d light his morning cigarette and fidget with my stereo for something repetitive, explicit—the kind of music born when we were, the one sound we had in common.
I shouldn’t, but I’m thinking
About the woman who got shot
Fighting over that sweat-soaked
Headscarf Teddy Pendergrass threw
Into the crowd at one of those
Shows he put on for “Ladies
Only” the year I was born. How
Many women reached
Before the tallest two forgot
Their new fingernails matched
Purses and shoes? I’m no good.
I thought I’d be bored with men
And music by now, voices tender
As the wound Pendergrass could feel
When he heard what caused gunfire
Was a trick he rehearsed. Love,
Quick and murderous, bleeding
Pr
oof of talent. He wanted to be
What we pay to see—Of course,
That’s not special. I imagine
Someone who desires any
Worn piece of man must be
Willing to shoot or be shot.
As we veered onto Line Avenue, he stopped the music, Sometimes, I call Angel those names. She throws forks and plates when I do.
He got out of my car laughing, but with his head in the window like it was his last chance at giving advice, It feels good to have a woman fine as she is so mad at you.
Before he saw Eve, the serpent walked upright
And climbed and crawled like a man with limbs.
He tangled himself in reaches for green, prized
The curves of his quick and endlessly slim
Body. Days were years then. The woman spent
Most days in giggles or gorged on something
Significant placed in her palms. The serpent
Admired her wandering, her ease at being
Described, entered. No one wanted, but even that garden
Grew against the ground’s will, and this,
Child, I tell you since soon you’ll grow and harden—
No matter how low she seemed squatting to piss,
The damned snake couldn’t stop staring, and she couldn’t
Understand—though he inched close enough
To whisper something wet and true. He needed to confront
Her with what he knew, needed her stuffed
On a sweet that made her see herself, see him
And every beast in the young world watching.
That wasn’t the day she killed him. They fought and called the police on each other for years. Nobody paid any mind.
But if I turn too quick on Line with the worst music, I can hear him again, explaining the satisfaction of hurting a woman who’s still there the next morning. I think that’s why he loved Angel, ugly or fine. What man wouldn’t love a woman like that? And why can’t I?
I Corinthians 13:11
When I was a child, I spoke as a child.
I even had a child’s disease. I ran
From the Doberman like all children
On my street, but old men called me
Special. The Doberman caught up,
Chewed my right knee. Limp now