Poetry

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…

Of What Of what did he dream? asleep near the lit word processor, As if thought had accrued to form. The late-summer sun seen once at Malibu. The primal light over the caustic seas. The winter citrus sun washed up over Jersey. The movie marquee proclaiming love. He wanted to imagine again out of the…

Geneva was the wild one. Geneva was a tart. Geneva met a blue-eyed boy and gave away her heart. Geneva ran a roadhouse. Geneva wasn't sent to college like the others: Pomp's prideful punishment. She cooked out on the river, watching the shore slide by, her lips pursed into hardness, her deep-set-brown eyes dry. They…

Tall in the doorway stands the gentle visitor. I catch my breath.      (She's quite deaf,      not interested in      details of my décor.      Her few words amaze me.      Her visits are irregular,      brief. When our eyes meet      how I am drawn to her.      I keep honey cream, in case,      in the freezer. Once      she stayed for…

It's a habit what we remember in what moods or places. That night, I thought, calmed by the food and wine, I could have walked with you until the twelfth of never or something like that. So we walked like that, hours through the Marais studying doors, vestibules, courtyards in the brimming three-quarter moonlight. Pit-stopped,…

Note: Traditionally, black-eyed peas are served on New Year's Eve. Each black-eyed pea one eats brings luck.      Well! Johnnie thinks. He has his nerve! Crashing this party! What stuck-up conceit! Passing his induction papers around; another Negro whose feet never touch the ground. His name is Melvin Nelson. In his eyes the black of dreams…