PRELUDE TO BRUISE
COPYRIGHT © 2014 Saeed Jones
COVER AND BOOK DESIGN by Linda Koutsky
COVER PHOTO © Syreeta McFadden
Coffee House Press books are available to the trade through our primary distributor, Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, cbsd.com. For personal orders, catalogs, or other information, write to: info@coffeehousepress.org.
Coffee House Press is a nonprofit literary publishing house. Support from private foundations, corporate giving programs, government programs, and generous individuals helps make the publication of our books possible. We gratefully acknowledge their support in detail in the back of this book.
Visit us at coffeehousepress.org.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Jones, Saeed.
[Poems. Selections]
Prelude to bruise / by Saeed Jones.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-56689-384-8 (ebook)
I. Title.
PS3610.O6279P74 2014
811’.6—dc23
2014008086
For my mother
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo
Anthracite
1Insomniac
Closet of Red
The Blue Dress
Isaac, after Mount Moriah
Pretending to Drown
Boy in a Stolen Evening Gown
Boy at Edge of Woods
Terrible Boy
Daedalus, after Icarus
Boy in a Whalebone Corset
Boy Found inside a Wolf
Boy at Threshold
After the First Shot
Last Call
2“Don’t Let the Sun Set on You”
Prelude to Bruise
Coyote Cry
Jasper, 1998
Lower Ninth
Drag
Kudzu
Beheaded Kingdom
Thralldom
Cruel Body
Thallium
He Thinks He Can Leave Me
3Secondhand (Smoke)
Body & Kentucky Bourbon
Eclipse of My Third Life
Guilt
Sleeping Arrangement
Apologia
Ketamine & Company
Thralldom II
Skin Like Brick Dust
Kingdom of Trick, Kingdom of Drug
Blue Prelude
In Nashville
4Highway 407
Meridian
Mercy
Mississippi Drowning
Casket Sharp
Dominion
The Fabulist
Room without a Ghost
Dirge
After Last Light
Hour between Dog & Wolf
Postapocalyptic Heartbeat
5History, according to Boy
6Last Portrait as Boy
Notes
Acknowledgments
The man in ecstasy and the man drowning—both throw up their arms.
—KAFKA
ANTHRACITE
A voice mistook for stone,
jagged black fist
thrown miles through space, through
doors of dark matter.
Heard you crack open the field’s skull
where you landed.
Halo of smoke ruined the sky
and you were a body now
naked and bruised in the cratered cotton.
Could have been a meteorite
except for those strip-mined eyes, each
a point of fossilized night.
Bringing water and a blanket,
I asked, “Which of your lives is this,
third or fifth?” Your answer, blues
a breeze to soak my clothes
in tears. With my palm pressed
to your lips, hush. When they hear
you, they will want you. Beware
of how they want you;
also burns.
1
INSOMNIAC
Small with wild legs, the boy stole your eyes
the day he was born.
In a language you’ve tried to keep
from him, your name is mother of sorrows.
When he does not answer your latest call, dream
him grown and gone: far off, a vial of your tears
on his nightstand.
In the autumn of his blood, he will siphon your hurt
to a child dying of thirst; the only inheritance
of worth in the village of your synapses.
But—for now—he’s still your boy. Sweet little
wreck. Check the room you’ve locked him in.
CLOSET OF RED
In place of no, my leaking mouth spills foxgloves.
Trumpets of tongued blossoms litter the locked closet.
Up to my ankles in petals, the hanged gowns close in,
mother multiplied, more—there’re always more
corseted ghosts, red-silk bodies crowd
my mouth. I would say no, please;
I would say sorry, Papa; I would never
ask for mother again, but dresses dressed
in dresses are dresses that own this garnet dark,
this mouth. These hands can’t find
the walls, only more mothers
emptied out.
THE BLUE DRESS
Her blue dress is a silk train is a river
is water seeps into the cobblestone streets of my sleep, is still raining
is monsoon brocade, is winter stars stitched into puddles
is good-bye in a flooded, antique room, is good-bye in a room of crystal bowls
and crystal cups, is the ring-ting-ring of water dripping from the mouths
of crystal bowls and crystal cups, is the Mississippi River is a hallway, is leaks
like tears from windowsills of a drowned house, is windows open to waterfalls
is a bed is a small boat is a ship, is a current come to carry me in its arms
through the streets, is me floating in her dress through the streets
is only the moon sees me floating through the streets, is me in a blue dress
out to sea, is my mother is a moon out to sea.
ISAAC, AFTER MOUNT MORIAH
Asleep on the roof when rain comes,
water collects in the dips of his collarbone.
Dirty-haired boy, my rascal, my sacrifice. Never
an easy dream. I watch him wrestle my shadow, eyelids
trembling, one fist ready for me.
Leave him a blanket, leave him alone.
Night before, found him caked in dirt,
sleeping in a ditch; wet black stones for pillows.
What kind of father does he make me, this boy
I find tangled in the hair of willows, curled fetal
in the grove?
Once, I found him in a far field, the mountain’s peak
like a blade above us both.
PRETENDING TO DROWN
The only regret is that I waited
longer than a breath
to scatter the sun’s reflection
with my body.
New stars burst upon the water
when you pulled me in.
On the shore, our clothes
begged us to be good boys again.
Every stick our feet touched
a snapping turtle, every shadow
a water moccasin.
Excuses to swim closer to one another.
I sank into the depths to see you
as the lake saw you: cut in half
by the surface, taut legs kicking,
the rest of you sky.
Suddenly still, a clear view
of what you knew I
wanted
to see.
When I resurfaced, slick grin,
knowing glance; you pushed me
back under.
I pretended to drown,
then swallowed you whole.
BOY IN A STOLEN EVENING GOWN
In this field of thistle, I am the improbable
lady. How I wear the word: sequined weight
snagging my saunter into overgrown grass, blonde
split-end blades. I waltz in an acre of bad wigs.
Sir who is no one, sir who is yet to come, I need you
to undo this zipped back, trace the chiffon
body I’ve borrowed. See how I switch my hips
for you, dry grass cracking under my pretend
high heels? Call me and I’m at your side,
one wildflower behind my ear. Ask me
and I’ll slip out of this softness, the dress
a black cloud at my feet. I could be the boy
wearing nothing, a negligee of gnats.
BOY AT EDGE OF WOODS
After his gasp and god damn,
after his zipper closes
its shadows, leaves me
alone to pick pine needles
from my hair, to brush brown
leaves off my shirt as blades
of light hang from the trees,
as I relearn my legs, mud-stained
knees, and walk back
to my burning house.
TERRIBLE BOY
My whole life, my whole huge seven-year-old life.
—PUSHKIN
In the field, one paw of the lion-clawed bathtub
glints in the light. Lukewarm buckets of water
carried for miles. And I will pay brightly
for this slick body. Unclean under
a back-turned sun, I sing the sins
that brought me here:
I turned the family portrait facedown
when he was on me,
fed gasoline to the roots of forsythia,
broke a mirror to slim
my reflection’s waist,
what he calls me is not my name
and I love it. Damask chair
beside the tub and on it, handmade armor
of bone.
Out of the water, in a wet-wheat towel
I wake
in my unlit room.
Father standing at the door.
DAEDALUS, AFTER ICARUS
Boys begin to gather around the man like seagulls.
He ignores them entirely, but they follow him
from one end of the beach to the other.
Their footprints burn holes in the sand.
It’s quite a sight, a strange parade:
a man with a pair of wings strapped to his arms
followed by a flock of rowdy boys.
Some squawk and flap their bony limbs.
Others try to leap now and then, stumbling
as the sand tugs at their feet. One boy pretends to fly
in a circle around the man, cawing in his face.
We don’t know his name or why he walks
along our beach, talking to the wind.
To say nothing of those wings. A woman yells
to her son, Ask him if he’ll make me a pair.
Maybe I’ll finally leave your father.
He answers our cackles with a sudden stop,
turns, and runs toward the water.
The children jump into the waves after him.
Over the sounds of their thrashes and giggles,
we hear a boy say, We don’t want wings.
We want to be fish now.
BOY IN A WHALEBONE CORSET
The acre of grass is a sleeping
swarm of locusts, and in the house
beside it, tears too are mistaken.
Thin streams of kerosene
when night throws itself against
the wall, when Nina Simone sings
in the next room without her body
and I’m against the wall, bruised
but out of mine: dream-headed
with my corset still on, stays
slightly less tight, bones against
bones, broken glass on the floor,
dance steps for a waltz
with no partner. Father in my room
looking for more sissy clothes
to burn. Something pink in his fist,
negligee, lace, fishnet, whore.
His son’s a whore this last night
of Sodom. And the record skips
and skips and skips. Corset still on,
nothing else, I’m at the window;
he’s in the field, gasoline jug,
hand full of matches, night made
of locusts, column of smoke
mistaken for Old Testament God.
BOY FOUND INSIDE A WOLF
Red is at the end of black. Pitch-black unthreads
and swings garnet
in what I thought was home. I’m climbing
out of my father. His love a wet shine
all over me. He knew I would come
to this: one small fist
punching a hole
to daylight.
BOY AT THRESHOLD
The front door kicked open
to a sky of windblown herons, pewter
wings bent back
by dark gust. If I were your blood,
I would fear this feathered dusk,
but I’ve always wanted to be dangerous.
The air grabs my lapel, rough-tongued
gale, and drags me free.
AFTER THE FIRST SHOT
I run the dark winter
coatless and a shirt of briar,
season of black sycamore
thickets, then the startle
of open fields. Bare feet
cracking earth. Each mile
birthing three more.
There are sorrel horses
herding inside me.
In a four-legged night,
clouds sink into the trees,
refuse me morning
and mourning, but I pass
what I thought was the end
of myself. To answer
your rifle’s last question:
if you ever find me,
I won’t be there.
LAST CALL
Night presses the gunmetal O of its mouth
against my own; I can’t help how I answer.
He is the taste of smoke, mesquite-laced tip
of the tongue. Silhouetted, a body always
pulling away, but his shirt collar in my fists,
I pull him back. Need another double-black
kiss. I’ve got more hunger than my body can hold.
Bloated with want, I’m the man who waits
for the moon to drown before I let the lake
grab my ankles & take me into its muddy mouth.
They say a city is at the bottom of all that water.
Oh, marauder. Make me a drink. I’m on my way.
2
“DON’T LET THE SUN SET ON YOU”
In 1990
you’re in Kentucky
on Highway 461
Thank God, it’s not darkyet.
Just enough light
for youto see
the sign.
Off the right-of-way
hillside, almost overgrown
NIGGER, DON’T LET THE SUN SET ON YOU
hillside, almost overgrown
sundown, 6 p.m.
YOU BETTER RUN
IF YOU CAN READ
THIS SIGN
hillside, Highway 461
Even if you can’t read
this sign, you know
darkness, don’t you?
PRELUDE TO BRUISE
In Birmingham, said the burly man—
Boy, be
a bootblack.
Your back, blue-black.
Your body,burning.
I like my black boys broke, or broken.
I like to break my black boys in.
See this burnished
brown leather belt?
You see it, boy?
Are you broke, or broken?
I’m gonna break your back in.
Good boy. Begin: bend
over my boot,
(or I’ll bend you over my lap—rap rap)
again, bend. Better,
butt out, tongue out,
lean in.
Now, spit-shine.
Spit-polish.
My boot, black.
Your back, blue-black.
Good boy.
Black boy, blue-black boy.
Bad boy—rap rap.
You’ve been broken in.
Begin again, bend.
COYOTE CRY
Listen to my darkness, my half-eclipsed notes.
Mistake them for the sound of a lonely woman
wailing as she roams the hills. She needs you
like I need you. Ignore the warnings;
hurry to me. Why aren’t you here yet?
Can’t you hear her trouble? Cold air
dries her muddy footprints to a path
of hard, open mouths. If she retraces her steps,
the footprints will eat her. Oh, farmer.
Ragged pines snatch her cries and keep them.
That’s why I cry. Hurry, little one.
Climb the broken stone stairs into the hills.
Climb them into the night’s throat.