Poetry

I didn't know much about Marilyn Monroe the day she died. I'd heard her name. The world's most beautiful woman has killed herself, said the newscaster. I saw her stretcher on the black-and-white television. I was visiting my cousin's fiancé's house—visiting strangers. But the news about Marilyn had me squeezed on the couch in that…

Elgar: Enigma Variations, Op. 36 For what does my longing long? Can I sing my own epitaph? Exactly how infinite are you? Military intelligence. (Military intelligence? Is that what I said?) In laughter hope and despair meet. Play it for me, Sam. At my funeral.

Hey Tard! Dan and I just decided; we’ve gone celibate! D’ya hear?! We ain’t gonna have sex no more! ‘Course we decided it down at JR’s. It was like a proclamation. Dan got up on the bar and yelled, “I hereby declare that I shall never have sex again!” But you know him. His vow…

Like holes punched in a tin roof, thinks Diverne. Up North, night don't mean nothing. Just like day. She wears good herbs. She prays. She'll never learn to quiet night's deep silences the way the African women did: they could bring the island stars down close. Up North so dark seem like somebody dying. When…

Frail warrior, at first there was no breath      in his body, Boy-Turning-Blue,      so when he opened his abashed lips to praise the day. . .      When did you falter, Thought-Woman, when did you fall asleep,      and fail to give him his eagle-feathered bow,      his little arrows of exhalation? And where the blood-warmed air should be,…

1. Fear of Subways Sometimes in the dark I fear trampling, an effortless extinction of the spirit underground: mass transit overflowing onto dangerous edges of piers. It connects palpably to suffocation, a child's version of rape, vapid plots of war movies—but who's the victim? I used to envy the unrapable, not for any power-mad apparatus…

It's Sunday evening. Pomp holds the receipts of all the colored families on the Hill in his wide lap. He shows which white stores cheat these patrons, who can't read a monthly bill. His parlor's full of men holding their hats and women who admire his daughters' hair. Pomp warns them not to vote for…

Into your scorched apron of tumbleweeds,      and I'm home: Mojave, Arid Mother, stop rocking me;      I'm a man now. Don't hum your berceuse of scorpions;      I'm a man. Can't you see?— Yes, I've noticed the cactus,      with its bristly halo, manages on nothing:      no canteen! Like messengers, like magi, the rattlesnakes      sally from their cool…

Unwise in love, I blunder overquickly into a glare that shouts, “Turn down your dial for brightness!”—obeying which, I learn the style of all those who love loving more obliquely. I see a dew scaled out along your skin and worship in that field, barefoot as Francis, until each bead across your chest convinces my…