Pleasure Dome. Yusef Komunyakaa
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you can go
to heaven.”
Uncle Jesse
would show up
after a rainstorm
some tin-roof night
after two years
working turpentine camps,
pine scent in his clothes—
shove a wad of greenbacks
into Grandmama’s apron pocket.
A Prince Albert
cigarette between two fingers,
Old Crow on his breath,
that .38 Smith & Wesson
under his overalls jumper,
& the click-click of dice
& bright shuffle of cards.
Just a few things he learned at 17
in World War I.
Family tree,
taproot,
genealogy of blues.
We’ve seen shadows
like workhorses
limp across ghost fields
& heard the rifle crack.
Blackbirds
blood flowered
in the southern sun.
Brass tambourines,
octave of pain
clear as blood on a silent mirror.
Someone close to us
dragged away in dawnlight
here in these iron years.
Instructions for Building Straw Huts
First you must have
unbelievable faith in water,
in women dancing like hands playing harps
for straw to grow stalks of fire.
You must understand the year
that begins with your hands tied
behind your back,
worship of dark totems
weighed down with night birds that shift their weight
& leave holes in the sky. You must know
what’s behind the shadow of a treadmill—
its window the moon’s reflection
& silent season reaching
into red sunlight hills.
You must know the hard science
of building walls that sway with summer storms.
Locking arms to a frame of air, frame of oak
rooted to ancient ground
where the door’s constructed last,
just wide enough for two lovers
to enter on hands & knees.
You must dance
the weaverbird’s song
for mending water & light
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