Pleasure Dome. Yusef Komunyakaa
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you now live
it snows year-round.
The pear & apple trees
have even missed you—
dead branches scattered
about like war. Come closer,
my eyes have grown night-dim.
Across the field white boxes
of honeybees silent as dirt,
silent as your missent
postcards. Evening
sunlight’s faded my hair,
the old stable’s slouched
to the ground. I dug a hole
for that calico, Cyclops,
two years ago. Now
milkweed & blackberries
are keepers of the cornfield.
That’s how the cards fall;
& Anna, that beautiful girl
you once loved enough
to die over & over again for,
now lives in New Orleans
on both sides of Bourbon Street.
Reflections
In the day’s mirror
you see a tall black man.
Fingers of gold cattail
tremble, then you witness
the rope dangling from
a limb of white oak.
It’s come to this.
You yell his direction,
the wind taking
your voice away.
You holler his mama’s name
& he glances up at the red sky.
You can almost
touch what he’s thinking,
reaching for his hand
across the river.
The noose pendulous
over his head,
you can feel him
grow inside you,
straining to hoist himself,
climbing a ladder
of air, your feet
in his shoes.
Annabelle
My head hangs.
It’s all to do with
a woman back in Alabama.
All to do with Annabelle
hugging every road sign
between here & Austin, Texas.
All to do with rope & blood.
He’s all to do with America.
All to do with all the No-Dick
Joneses. Mornings shattered.
Crickets mourn—
sign out of genetic code.
All to do with shadows
kneeling in the woods.
All to do with inherited iron maidens.
Beg for death in the womb.
Beg for it inside skulls—flower,
dust, lilac perfume, cold fire.
Gonna get lowdown tonight.
Faith Healer
Come singing in your chains,
Sweet Daughter. Dance, yes.
All the light-fingered artisans
of sacrilege, of wishful thinking
who failed, all the goat-footed heretics
crying for a High John the Conqueror
root, now here you are,
dear child, naked facing God.
A laying on of hands. Yes,
walk out of the grave whole.
Blood on the thorns. Vox
& ossa. You’re here, girl,
to obey His design in the flesh.
I plant a kiss where it hurts.
Trees walk forth. Throw away
your sticks & lean on Jesus.
Touch my hand, touch my hand!
More Girl Than Boy
You’ll always be my friend.
Is that clear, Robert Lee?
We go beyond the weighing
of each other’s words,
hand on a shoulder,
go beyond the color of hair.
Playing Down the Man on the Field
we embraced each other before
I discovered girls.
You taught me a heavy love
for jazz, how words can hurt
more than a quick jab.
Something there’s no word for
saved us from the streets.
Night’s pale horse
rode you past common sense,
but you made it home from Chicago.
So many dreams dead.
All the man-sweet gigs
meant absolutely nothing.
Welcome back to earth, Robert.
You always could make that piano
talk like somebody’s mama.
April Fools’ Day
They had me laid out in a white
satin casket. What the hell
went wrong, I wanted to ask.
Whose midnight-blue sedan
mowed me down, what unnameable fever
bloomed amber & colchicum
in my brain, which doctor’s scalpel
slipped? Did it happen
on a rainy Saturday, blue
Monday, Vallejo’s Thursday?
I think I was on a balcony
overlooking the whole thing.
My soul sat in a black chair
near the door, sullen
& no-mouthed. I was fifteen
in a star-riddled box,
in heaven up to my eyelids.
My skin shone like damp light,
my face was the gray of something
gone. They were all there.
My mother behind an opaque veil,
so