Pleasure Dome. Yusef Komunyakaa
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like something sinful.
“Have you ever heard of Ah
Coy & Ha Gin?” He shakes
his head, knitting his brows.
“I’m just fooling, being
awful silly tonight.”
He notices the poster of Monkey
Creates Havoc in Heaven
tacked beside the kitchen door
where the scent of ginger & garlic
stream up from hot sesame oil
like ghosts. “I used to come
here last year. Every Friday.
The place hasn’t changed.
We used to sit right here
in this same booth. Paul
& me.” He wishes she’d stop
talking. Those flowers
beside the cash register
are too damn red to be
real. “That was before he
started dating a Chinese girl.
I think her family has money.”
The waitress refills their
glasses. “Are you sure you
want to talk about this?”
he says. She picks at
the snow peas with her fork.
“They come here all the time,
& I bet he’d just die
if he saw us together.”
Once the Dream Begins
I wish the bell saved you.
“Float like a butterfly
& sting like a bee.”
Too bad you didn’t
learn to disappear
before a left jab.
Fighting your way out of a clench,
you counter-punched & bicycled
but it was already too late:
gray weather had started
shoving the sun into a corner.
“He didn’t mess up my face.”
But he was an iron hammer
against stone, as you
bobbed & weaved through hooks.
Now we strain to hear you.
Once the dream begins
to erase itself, can the
dissolve be stopped?
No more card tricks
for the TV cameras,
Ali. Please come back to us
sharp-tongued & quick-footed,
spinning out of the blurred
dance. Whoever said men
hit harder when women
are around, is right.
Word for word,
we beat the love
out of each other.
Ogoni
Neighbors, please don’t
mind me this morning
at windows balling my fists
at the sun. Lowdown
bastards, imbeciles
& infidels, a tribunal
of jackasses behind
mirrored sunglasses
with satchels of loot—wait,
calm down, count to twenty
& take a few deep breaths.
You don’t want to disgrace
his heroic tongue. Go
to the kitchen window
& sit in that easy chair
striped like a zebra,
& imagine how a herd runs
with an oscillating rhythm,
like a string bass & drums
trading riffs. The big cats
can only see a striped hill
moving beneath a sunset,
a grid of grass & trees
in motion, a pattern to fear
& instinct, because they run
as one, as sky & earth. Look
at the scrappy robin & bluejay
squabble over earthworms
underneath the ginkgo,
as a boy on the edge
of memory raises a Daisy
air rifle. Look at the robin
puff out its bright chest
like a bull’s eye. Only
a boy could conjure
a ricochet in his cocky head
that hits a horseshoe
looped around an iron peg,
a little of God’s geometry
to get things perfect.
A single red leaf
spirals to the ground.
Where did the birds
go, & why am I
weeping at this window?
That’s not my face
strung to the hands
holding the gun, unmasked
by the Shell trademark
on his gold moneyclip,
worms throbbing behind
the scab grown over
his eyes. Those damn
bastards murdered a good man
when they hanged Ken
Saro-Wiwa. Why was he
so cool, did the faces of his
wife & children steady
his voice? “I predict
the denouement of the riddle
of the Niger delta
will soon come.” Did
you feel dead grass quiver
& birds stop singing?
To cut the acid rage
& put some sugar back
on the lying tongue,
I’ll say my wife’s name
forever—the only song
I’m willing to beat
myself up a hill for,
to die with in my mouth.