on books, magazines, & clothes
flung to the studio’s floor,
his sweat still owning the air.
Years ago you followed someone
here, in love with breath
kissing the nape of your neck,
back when it was easy to be
at least two places at once.
A TRANSLATION OF SILK
One can shove his face against silk
& breathe in centuries of perfume
on the edge of a war-torn morning
where men fell so hard for iron
they could taste it. Now, today,
a breeze disturbs a leafy pagoda
printed on slow cloth. A creek
begins to move. His brain trails,
lagging behind his fingers to learn
suggestion is more than radiance
shaped to the memory of hands,
that one of the smallest creatures
knows how to be an impressive god.
A flounce of light is the only praise
it ever receives. I need to trust
this old way of teaching a man
to cry, & I want to believe in
what’s left of the mulberry leaves.
Humans crave immortality, but oh,
yes, to think worms wove this
as a way to stay alive in our world.
DEAD RECKONING
Fishermen follow a dream of the biggest
catch, out among the tall waves where
freshwater meets a salty calmness.
For hundreds of years they’ve crossed
this body of water, casting their nets
& singing old songs. They’ve slept
with the village women & ridden waves
back to the other side to loved ones.
Now, lost in the old clothes of unreason
& wanderlust, their nets sag with the last
of its kind, with bountiful fish stories,
& soon the flirtatious mermaids are
beckoning from a swoon of reeds,
calling their names. The first dance
is desire. The second dance is love.
The tall grass quivers like a siren
snagged in a shabby net. Now,
as if on a journey of lost souls,
love & desire dance with death,
twirling bright skirts till flesh & cloth
turn into ashes. What did they do
to make the gods angry? Forbidden
laughter of the mermaids fills the night,
& if humans try to sing this laughter,
their voices only cry out in the dark.
CAPE COAST CASTLE
I made love to you, & it loomed there.
We sat on the small veranda of the cottage,
& listened hours to the sea talk.
I didn’t have to look up to see if it was still there.
For days, it followed us along polluted beaches
where the boys herded cows
& the girls danced for the boys,
to the money changer,
& then to the marketplace.
It went away when the ghost of my mother
found me sitting beneath a palm,
but was in the van with us on a road trip to the country
as we zoomed past thatch houses.
It was definitely there when a few dollars
exchanged hands & we were hurried
through customs, past the guards.
I was standing in the airport in Amsterdam,
sipping a glass of red wine, half lost in Van Gogh’s
swarm of colors, & it was there, brooding in a corner.
I walked into the public toilet, thinking of W.E.B.
buried in a mausoleum, & all his books & papers
going to dust, & there it was, in that private moment,
the same image: obscene because it was built
to endure time, stronger than their houses & altars.
The seeds of melon. The seeds of gumbo in trade winds
headed to a new world. I walked back into the throng
of strangers, but it followed me. I could see the path
slaves traveled, & I knew when they first saw it
all their high gods knelt on the ground.
Why did I taste salt water in my mouth?
We stood in line for another plane,
& when the plane rose over the city
I knew it was there, crossing the Atlantic.
Not a feeling, but a longing. I was in Accra
again, gazing up at the vaulted cathedral ceiling
of the compound. I could see the ships at dusk
rising out of the lull of “Amazing Grace,” cresting
the waves. The governor stood on his balcony,
holding a sword, pointing to a woman
in the courtyard, saying, That one.
Bring me that tall, ample wench.
Enslaved hands dragged her to the center,
then they threw buckets of water on her,
but she tried to fight. They pinned her to the ground.
She was crying. They prodded her up the stairs. One step,
& then another. Oh, yeah, she still had some fight in her,
but the governor’s power was absolute. He said,
There’s a tyranny of language in my fluted bones.
There’s poetry on every page of the Good Book.
There’s God’s work to be done in a forsaken land.
There’s a whole tribe in this one, but I’ll break them
before they’re in the womb, before they’re conceived,
before they’re even thought of. Come, up here,
don’t be afraid, up here to the governor’s quarters,
up here where laws are made. I haven’t delivered
the head of Pompey or John the Baptist
on a big silver tray, but I own your past,
present, & future. You’re special.
You’re not like the others. Yes,
I’ll break you with fists & cat-o’-nine.
I’ll thoroughly break you, head to feet,
but, sister, I’ll break you most dearly
with sweet words.
BLACK FIGS
Because they tasted so damn good, I swore
I’d never eat another one, but three seedy little hearts
beckoned tonight from a green leaf-shaped saucer,
swollen with ripeness, ready to spill a gutty
sacrament on my tongue. Their skins too smooth
to trust or believe. Shall I play Nat King Cole’s
“Nature Boy” or Cassandra’s “Death Letter”
this Gypsy hour? I have a few words to steal
back the taste of earth. I know laughter can rip
stitches, & deeds come undone in the middle of a dance.
Socrates talked himself into raising the cup to his lips
to toast the avenging oracle, but I told the gods no
false kisses, they could keep their ambrosia & nectar,
& let me live my days & nights. I nibble each globe,
each succulent bud down to its broken-off stem
like a boy trying to make a candy bar last
the whole day, & laughter unlocks my throat
when a light falls across Bleecker Street
against the ugly fire escape.
FATA MORGANA
I could see thatch boats. The sea
swayed against falling sky. Mongolian
horses crested hills, helmets edging the perimeter,
& I saw etched on the horizon scarab insignias.
The clangor of swords & armor echoed
& frightened scorpions into their holes,
& the question of zero clouded the brain.
I saw three faces of my death foretold.
I sat at a table overflowing with muscadine & quince,
but never knew a jealous husband poisoned the Shir
az.
I laughed at his old silly joke about Caligula
lounging in a bathhouse made of salt blocks.
I was on a lost ship near the equator,
& only a handful of us were still alive,
cannibal judgment in our eyes.
I came to a restful valley of goats & dragon lizards,
but only thought of sand spilling from my boots.
I witnessed the burning of heretics near an oasis,
& dreamt of gulls interrogating sea horses, cuttlefish,
& crabs crawling out of the white dunes.
I could see the queen of scapegoats
donning a mask as palms skirted the valley.
I was lost in a very old land, before Christ
& Muhammad, & when I opened my eyes
I could see women embracing a tribunal
of gasoline cans. I heard a scuttling
on the seafloor. I knew beforehand
what surrender would look like after
long victory parades & proclamations,
& could hear the sounds lovemaking
brought to the cave & headquarters.
ENGLISH
When I was a boy, he says, the sky began burning,
& someone ran knocking on our door
one night. The house became birds
in the eaves too low for a boy’s ears.
I heard a girl talking, but they weren’t words.
I knew one good thing: a girl
was somewhere in our house,
speaking slow as a sailor’s parrot.
I glimpsed Alice in Wonderland.
Her voice smelled like an orange,
though I’d never peeled an orange.
I knocked on the walls, in a circle.
The voice was almost America.
My ears plucked a word out of the air.
She said, Friend. I eased open the door
hidden behind overcoats in a closet.
The young woman was smiling at me.
She was teaching herself a language
to take her far, far away,
& she taught me a word each day to keep secret.
But one night I woke to other voices in the house.
A commotion downstairs & a pleading.
There are promises made at night
that turn into stones at daybreak.
From my window, I saw the stars
burning in the river brighter than a big
celebration. I waited for her return,
with my hands over my mouth.
I can’t say her name, because it was
dangerous in our house so close to the water.
Was she a boy’s make-believe friend
or a beehive breathing inside the walls?
Years later my aunts said two German soldiers
shot the girl one night beside the Vistula.
This is how I learned your language.
It was long ago. It was springtime.
POPPIES
These frantic blooms can hold their own
when it comes to metaphor & God.
Take any name or shade of irony, any flowery
indifference or stolen gratitude, & our eyes,
good or bad, still run up to this hue.
Take this woman sitting beside me,
a descendant of Hungarian Gypsies
born to teach horses to dance & eat sugar
from her hand, does she know beauty
couldn’t have protected her, that a poppy
tucked in her hair couldn’t have saved her
from those German storm troopers?
This frightens me. I see eyes peeping
through narrow slats of cattle cars
hurrying toward forever. I see “Jude”
& “Star of David” scribbled across a depot,
but she says, That’s the name of a soccer team,
baby. Red climbs the hills & descends,
hurrying out to the edge of a perfect view,
& then another, between white & violet.
It is a skirt or cape flung to the ground.
It is old denial worked into the soil.
It is a hungry new vanity that rises
& then runs up to our bleating train.
I am a black man, a poet, a bohemian,
& there isn’t a road my mind doesn’t travel.
I also have my cheap, one-way ticket
to Auschwitz & know of no street or footpath
death hasn’t taken. The poppies rush ahead,
up to a cardinal singing on barbed wire.
ORPHEUS AT THE SECOND GATE OF HADES
My lyre has fallen & broken,
but I have my little tom-toms.
Look, do you see those crows
perched on the guardhouse?
I don’t wish to speak of omens,
but sometimes it’s hard to guess.
Life has been good the past few years.
I know all seven songs of the sparrow,
& I feel lucky to be alive. I woke up at 2:59
this morning reprieved because I fought
dream catchers & won. I’ll place a stone
into my mouth & go down there again,
& if I meet myself mounting the stairs
it won’t be the same man descending.
Doubt has walked me to the river’s edge
before. I may be ashamed, but I can’t forget
how to mourn & praise on the marimba.
I shall play till the day’s golden machinery
stops between the known & unknown.
The place was a funeral pyre for the young
who died before knowing the thirst of man
or woman. Furies with snakes in their hair
wept. Tantalus ate pears & sipped wine
in a dream, as the eyes of a vulture
poised over Tityus’s liver. I could see
Ixion strapped to a gyrating wheel
& Sisyphus sat on his rounded stone.
& King Pluto. When it comes to defending love,
I can make a lyre drag down the moon & stars
but it’s still hard to talk of earthly things—
ordinary men killing ordinary men,
women, & children. I don’t remember
exactly what I said at the ticket office
my first visit here, but I do know it grew
ugly. The classical allusions didn’t
make it any easier. I played a tune
that worked its way into my muscles,
& I knew I had to speak of what I’d seen
before the serpent drew back its head.
I saw a stall filled with human things, an endless
list of names, a hill of shoes, a room of suitcases
tagged to nowhere, eyeglasses, toothbrushes,
baby shoes, dentures, ads for holiday spas,
& a wide roll of thick cloth woven of living hair.
If I never possessed these reed flutes
& drums, if my shadow stops kissing me
because of what I have witnessed,
I shall holler to you through my bones,
I promise you.
THREE FIGURES AT THE BASE OF A CRUCIFIXION
—AFTER FRANCIS BACON
Look how each pound of meat
manages to climb up & weigh itself
in the wobbly cage of the head.
Did the painter ascend a dogwood
or crawl into the hold of a slave ship
to get a good view of the thing
turning itself inside out beneath
a century of interrogation lamps?
It was always here, hiding behind
gauze, myth, doubt, blood, & spit.
After the exhibit on New Bond Street
they walked blocks around a garden
of April roses, tiger lilies, duckweed,
& trillium, shaking their heads.
The burning of mad silence left
powder rooms & tea parlors smoky.
Brushstrokes formed a blade to cut
the hues. A slipped disk
grew into a counterweight,
& the muse kept saying,
Learn to be kind to yourself.
A twisted globe of flesh
is held together by what
it pushes against.
A VISIT TO INNER SANCTUM
A poet stands on the steps of the grand cathedral,
wondering if he has been a coward in hard times.
He traveled east, north, south, & seven directions
of the west. When he first arrived on the other side
of the sea, before he fell into the flung-open arms
of a long romance, the lemon trees were in bloom.
After a year, poised on the rift of a purple haze,
he forgot all the questions he brought with him.
Couldn’t he see the tear gas drifting over Ohio
as flower children danced to Jefferson Airplane?
Will he ever write a sonnet dedicated to the memory
of four girls dynamited in a Birmingham church?
Standing in the cathedral again, in the midst
of what first calibrated his tongue—gold icons
& hidden jaguars etched into the high beams—
he remembers an emanation almost forgotten.
He can’t stop counting dead heroes who lived in his head,
sultry refrains that kept him alive in the country of clouds.
Underneath the granite floor where he stands
loom the stone buttresses of an ancient temple.
When he was a boy, with his head bowed
close to the scarred floor, he could hear voices
rising from below, their old lingua franca
binding with his. How could he forget?
Outside the Institute of National Memory
he toasts the gods hiding between stanzas.
The girl he left behind for enemy soldiers
to rough up & frighten, she never stopped
waiting for him, even after she lost herself
in booze. Now he faces a rusty iron gate.
Did she know someday he’d question a life
till he held only a bone at the dull-green door
of an icehouse where they stole their first kiss?
To have laughed beside another sweetheart
in a distant land is to have betrayed the soil
of dispossession hidden under his fingernails.
Suppose he’d pursued other, smaller passions
singing of night dew? The dead ones kept him