Pleasure Dome. Yusef Komunyakaa
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The Other,
did you forget
Dracula was singled out
because of his dark hair
& olive skin? After
you became your cover,
tabloid headlines
grafted your name
to a blond boy’s.
The personals bled
through newsprint,
across your face. Victor
Frankenstein knew we must
love our inventions. Now,
maybe skin will start to grow
over the lies & subtract
everything that under-
mines nose & cheekbone.
You could tell us if
loneliness is what
makes the sparrow sing.
Michael, don’t care
what the makeup
artist says, you know
your sperm will never
reproduce that face
in the oval mirror.
Pepper
If you were alive, Art
Pepper, I’d collar you
as you stepped off the
bandstand. Last notes
of “Softly as a Morning
Sunrise” fall between us,
a hint of Africa
still inside your alto.
Someone wants to blame
your tongue on drugs: “If I
found out some white broad
was married to a black guy
I’d rave at her in games
& call her tramp, slut,
whore.” Did you steal
the Phoenix’s ashes
listening to Bird?
I’m angry for loving
your horn these years,
wooed by the monkey
riding you in L.A.
as if changes in “Mambo
De La Pinta” could be
rounded off to less
than zero. Words
you tried to take back
left blood on the reed.
South Carolina Morning
Her red dress & hat
tease the sky’s level-
headed blue. Outside
a country depot,
she could be a harlot
or saint on Sunday
morning. We know
Hopper could slant
light till it falls
on our faces. She waits
for a tall blues singer
whose twelve-string is
hours out of hock,
for a pullman porter
with a pigskin wallet
bulging with greenbacks,
who stepped out of Porgy
at intermission. This is
paradise made of pigment
& tissue, where apples
ripen into rage & lust.
In a quick glance,
beyond skincolor,
she’s his muse, his wife—
the same curves
to her stance, the same
breasts beneath summer cloth.
Rendezvous
Her fingertips touch his
left palm, her grin
like an image stolen
from Fellini’s La Strada.
“Don’t you ever wonder
where the Chinese were
in the ’60s, when you
& Chavez were out there
facing dogs & billyclubs,
don’t you wonder?” Her voice
somewhere between Atlanta
& Boston. Her blue eyes
linger on his Igbo face.
“Family makes them so
strong,” he says, smoothing out
the napkin. “They’ve been here
since the early railroad days,
maybe longer. I don’t know.”
The waitress brings their
chardonnay. Before she turns
to leave, he notices the dragons
on her green silk jacket
in some tussle of pale
light across her breasts.
“I’m fascinated by all this
Chinese stuff. Instructions
for Court Ladies, Du Fu,
I read what I can get
my hands on, anything,”
she says. A tiger fish
kisses the aquarium with its
dark nose, eyes like two
bulbous bloodstones. On a wall
to the right, a representation
of Yan Liban’s The Emperor
Wu of the Northern Zhou looms.
“Have you ever seen a black
waitress in a place like this?”
She’s so quiet at the office—
does he know her, can the night go
anywhere? “I like your dress,”
he says. She nods & smiles.
The waitress serves their sweet
& sour prawns, snow peas
& curry chicken. Blue bowls
of steamed rice. “At Mount Zhiju
is an inscription about black
hair. Oh, well, I don’t know
what I’m talking about
these days.” She pops
a prawn into her mouth.
The hot curry tingles
his tongue.