Neon Vernacular. Yusef Komunyakaa
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takes to turn & watch a woman
Tiptoe & pull a sheer blouse off
The clothesline, to see her sun-lit
Dress ride up peasant legs
Like the last image of mercy, three
Are drinking from the Mason jar.
That’s the oak we planted
The day before I left town,
As if father & son
Needed staking down to earth.
If anything could now plumb
Distance, that tree comes close,
Recounting lost friends
As they turn into mist.
The woman stands in a kitchen
Folding a man’s trousers—
Her chin tucked to hold
The cuffs straight.
I’m lonely as those storytellers
In my father’s backyard
I shall join soon. Alone
As they are, tilting back heads
To let the burning ease down.
The names of women melt
In their mouths like hot mints,
As if we didn’t know Old Man Pagget’s
Stoopdown is doctored with
Slivers of Red Devil Lye.
Salt
Lisa, Leona, Loretta?
She’s sipping a milkshake
In Woolworths, dressed in
Chiffon & fat pearls.
She looks up at me,
Grabs her purse
& pulls at the hem
Of her skirt. I want to say
I’m just here to buy
A box of Epsom salt
For my grandmama’s feet.
Lena, Lois? I feel her
Strain to not see me.
Lines are now etched
At the corners of her thin,
Pale mouth. Does she know
I know her grandfather
Rode a white horse
Through Poplas Quarters
Searching for black women,
How he killed Indians
& stole land with bribes
& fake deeds? I remember
She was seven & I was five
When she ran up to me like a cat
With a gypsy moth in its mouth
& we played doctor & house
Under the low branches of a raintree
Encircled with red rhododendrons.
We could pull back the leaves
& see grandmama ironing
At their wide window. Once
Her mother moved so close
To the yardman we thought they’d kiss.
What the children of housekeepers
& handymen knew was enough
To stop biological clocks,
& it’s hard now not to walk over
& mention how her grandmother
Killed her idiot son
& salted him down
In a wooden barrel.
Note to ebook edition readers: This poem is presented first as an illustration to show the poet’s intended arrangement of the text, then as the text of the complete left column and the complete right column.
Changes; or, Reveries at a Window Overlooking a Country Road, with Two Women Talking Blues in the Kitchen
Left column
Joe, Gus, Sham …
Even George Edward
Done gone. Done
Gone to Jesus, honey.
Doncha mean the devil,
Mary? Those Johnson boys
Were only sweet talkers
& long, tall bootleggers.
Child, now you can count
The men we usedta know
On one hand. They done
Dropped like mayflies—
Cancer, heart trouble,
Blood pressure, sugar,
You name it, Eva Mae.
Amen. Tell the truth,
Girl. I don’t know.
Maybe the world’s heavy
On their shoulders. Maybe
Too much bed hopping
& skirt chasing
Caught up with them.
God don’t like ugly.
Look at my grandson
In there, just dragged in
From God only knows where,
He high tails it home
Inbetween women troubles.
He’s nice as a new piece
Of silk. It’s a wonder
Women don’t stick to him
Like white on rice.
It’s a fast world
Out there, honey.
They go all kinda ways.
Just buried John Henry
With that old guitar
Cradled in his arms.
Over on Fourth Street
Singing ’bout hell hounds
When he dropped dead.
You heard ’bout Jack
Right? He just tilted over
In prayer meeting.
The good & the bad go
Into