bargaining
i had wanted nothing more than to survive my childhood.
to walk clean-faced and unfrayed out of that constant alarm.
to mourn her is to mourn the belt & the hands that held the belt
& the heart that held the hands that spilled my blood like juice
across the kitchen linoleum
don’t use my good towels either
besides, what good is survival’s trophy if your assailant is dead?
come back. even if it means your hug is a hand around my throat
even if your kiss is delivered with a fist. o’ how quickly i would
crawl back into that haunted house, that graveyard where every
hymn goes to die. o how ready i am to be thinned with fear, seven
& tear-drunk. to heave & pop like ready oil. to throw a knife at
the family portrait. to soar b::::h from my lips like a fevered bird.
to wish her dead beneath my breath while i scrub myself off the floor
depression
rakes the night sky of its stars, keeps them as leverage, as bulb-less lamps
in the basement of me. i am alive if alive means to be a moth caught in the
hands of some childish grief. shake me to see if i am still breathing. burn
my wings if i’m not
confession: the want to die is not always the want not to live, but sometimes
the want to live somewhere softer. where the tall grass lulls my body to sleep
where everything promises to stay alive
acceptance
GRIEF, AGAIN
every black woman with grey hair is your dead mother you collapse in Walmart knees buckled at the sight of an electric scooter you wrap yourself around yourself & wail into a naked mattress your lover’s hand is placed like heated stones along your heaving back you don’t want to be touched & want to be touched everywhere you show the dean the death certificate & are allowed to stay another semester drowning would be easiest you think as rain draws razor thin lines down your bedroom window grief is a paper cut at every bend in your body grief shaves each bone down to a shriveled white flag you want to die but don’t want to leave a mess you throw a mug across the kitchen & envy its sudden dissection every word your mother last spoke scuttles like mice in your deserted head memory is a ruptured organ memory is a ghost begging for new flesh memory taps a gun to your inner skull & demands you bring back the dead
TEETHING: A CRUMBLING PANTOUM
In my worst dream all of my teeth fall out
I awake like a fire choking on air
Teeth are the hardest substance in the human body
Suddenly, I am the boy defined by what he has lost
I awake as a fire choking on air & the mother
sharpens my name with her tongue, whittles it down
to faggot. Suddenly, I am the boy defined by what is given to him
What is a dream / if not the mind pulling ribbons from my throat
The mother sharpens my skin with faggot, whittles me down
with Leviticus. The uncle says one gay nephew has flooded
enough. What are teeth / if not the telling of which parts
of you most easily soften when sweet
To be queer & black is to walk out of the closet
into a casket. My queer says my black has flooded enough
The mother says confession, says communion, drink the blood
says to be straight, to be calm, to pray, to kneel eager with a ready
mouth before god
& what is left to do
but pluck the bones
from my face
ALPHABET SOUP
say: f a t h e r
& each letter will become
a bird fleeing my mind’s
nest. ask where & the f
will curl itself beneath my
mother’s chin. waiting for
grief, that chewed & still
kicking worm to drop into
its ready mouth. ask of the
divorce & the a hurls itself
into every window of that
house. each thump, a cracked
& unanswered neck carpeting
the lawn. divorce. how pretty
a name for such a sloppy
wreckage & maybe it was a
slow decision, one letter collected
for every new child he found
my mother nursing in the kitchen
didn’t like all of the stray cribs
crowding the entry. must have
curled his lips as she offered
adoption? as she would leftover
soup, a second option when all
the good meat has gone sour
when the good, woman body
is said spoiled for what it can
not produce. when a black woman
body is not a body but now, a napkin
he uses to wipe his mouth full of
what my mother’s hands have made
THE ORPHAN PERFORMS AN AUTOPSY ON ADOPTION
ALTERNATE BEGINNING: THE GAME
is simple & played with my brother
in the backseat, as each home flutters
past you point & say yes or no
yes, you would live there
no, you would not
maybe a home
with grass, the good kind, the shiny kind, the kind outside
the courthouse. the kind that reaches all the way to the curb:
no dirt patches, no dead bulking brown, no yellow weeded
intruders spotting through crumbling cement, no abandoned
sideways tricycle, rain rusted & waiting & waiting
maybe a home
with a tree fit for five-year-old feet, a garden even, visible
from the street. maybe our newer mother will grow things.
good things. the nutritious kind. the kind that chemicals cannot
produce. the kind that doesn’t kindle or make lamar, my older
bro, cough like he does. like a factory in his chest or a fight
maybe a home
with windows, ones you can see both in & out of, & curtains
blue & wavy, then sometimes it’ll be like you’re near the water
& river weed & sleep will come easy. unlike breath, unlike
those men with badges on their chests always upturning the mattress
dumping out cabinets, like they searching for something bad
something they need, something bagged & that easily burns
maybe a home
with brick or blue plaster with ribbons tied to the railing, maybe
they’ll know we’re coming, maybe they won’t know where we’ve been
then it’ll be like we’re new & nameless. a porch swing. a welcome
mat. yes, yes
i ask the man driving if adoption hurts like a needle. i ask if lamar,
my older bro will be there too. to him my questions are caught flies
charging the glass. he opens the window & out falls my: yes, yes
maybe a home
with a porchlight. maybe a home
with a white fence. maybe a home
without holes. maybe a home
with fresh pain t. maybe a home
without screams in the front screens
yes, yes. maybe a home
with a doorbell. maybe a home
with a door
ADOPTION DAY: HOMECOMING, 1998
for Lamar
if to die means to dream forever, to live among the shapeless & hovering i know what story keeps my mother company. if you knew her you knew about the dream, the one where her fruitless body wished for the plum skinned boy & then the boy walks through her front door. if you did not know her, here:
Characters:
Aunt Paula
Aunt Nancy
Aunt Charlotte
it was like she saw a ghost / mmm-mm / just like that / a ghost / jumped up &
er’ thang / damn near jumped out her skin / mmm-mm / hollering ‘bout some dream / just like Mary ain’t it, dreaming of ghosts / just like her / mmm-mm / damn near scared the children / damn near made the social worker send y’all back / hollering like she was / said she seen him before / your brother / dreamt up his bones / said she labored him every night for nine months / every night / she said / crying like she be / just like Mary ain’t it, always crying / all: always / took his face between her palms / real tight / like she was praying / like his face was the New Testament / weeping like she was / & she was / examining his face like fruit / looking for a bruise / some birthmark / some evidence only she could understand / your mother child / child, your momma / boy your mother must have found it / must have seen what she was looking for / all: must have fell in love / must have wept the Red Sea / & that’s when she jumped /she did / flame like / screaming like she was / it’s him! / kept saying, it’s him! / her tears drawing lines on his face / his face wide eyed & puffy / his face a fruit rinsed clean / held him close / held you too / breathless & sweatin’ like she just gave birth / like y’all was blood / or panting & covered in hers / you was there / don’t you remember / was nothin’ but two years old / couldn’t have / all: mm-mmmm / your momma was / boy your mom / child, your mother was / all: somethin’ else
i don’t remember this bloodless birth. our second mother holding our small bodies to her breast. but i know it happened. i’ve seen the photos. i’ve met strangers who, i hear, took turns carrying me on their shoulders. and i will not beg for you to believe this gentle miracle, this impossible bedtime story shared whenever we needed a reminder of who we belonged to. how strange now that she is gone & we are the ones rushing home to sleep. hoping to lay down our grief. hoping, if only for a moment, she appears, laughing in our dreams.
TO KEEP FROM SAYING ORPHAN
adopted
if i say it fast enough
it sounds like i—a—m—dead
iamadopted/iamadopted/iamadopted
which means it could be worse
which means my life is
only valuable compared to worse
it does this, my head i mean. makes
every poem a beatless body. which
makes my mouth a morgue. which
makes my mouth a catharsis of ash
which makes you a witness to this
wilting. which means sometimes i
stay up & rehearse
my own going. i practice the release
of my own ghost into the night. each
poem eulogizing
a limb or
an organ or
a thought
each poem some mortician’s headache
each poem badly embalmed: missing
teeth
which makes my mouth a closed casket
which means i mourn in metaphor
which means my parent(s)
could be the shovel
or the dirt or the tree
owl interrogating the night
do you hear them asking
who
who, took
my boy?
GRIEF SESTINA
you’ve heard grief turns the body to stone
like some brash & greedy lover, the earth
curls its frigid limbs around your mother’s
body. death is the only possible thing
she would put before her children’s
needs & you need so badly for winter
to release its grip, reverse each winter
flake resting too boldly on her tombstone.
an absence so thick, her eleven children
begin to erase. begin to envy the earth
for its ability to hunger—to call anything
food. this is the first funeral your mother
will not sing you through. grief mothers
your tuneless bones. January holds winter
like a sobbing brother while everything
reminds you of what final seed or stone
your body will become to fertilize the earth.
who are you, now, if not your mother’s child?
orphan means you are everything’s child
or orphan means the land is your mother
or orphan means you belong to the earth
even when, like a groggy, silent god, winter
comes to sharpen every song to stone.
you’ve heard death is natural then everything
come spring, must grieve. to thaw is a thing
of release. of new, wet life beckoning a child’s
hands. look at how mud can clean any stone
in the garden. carefully make out your mother’s
face among the good soil. yes donte, winter
will leave & will come again & from the earth
will grow her smile flagging in April’s earthly
wind. a bulb. a stem. a stalk braving anything
threatening sunlight. yes donte, winter
will leave & will take her body with. children
stand & sing: sometimes I feel like a motherless
& the church joins motherless child. stone
tongues singing to stone: sometimes i feel earth
becoming motherless. you are everything’s
sweet child, singing in hopes to melt winter
LONG STORY SHORT
after Mary Lou Collins
someone who is dead now taught you
how best to clean up your blood. then
how to clean up blood when it is not
your own. how to push from your elbow
properly sweep a floor, spell c o n t i n u e
three syllables donte, go on & like a god
or a bird, or a boy salted with grief, you
want the earth to kneel for you, want every
clock to confess its slick motive. to say,
suddenly, that death is only a joke
the earth’s biggest punchline. she’s been
gone 15,840 minutes & you have felt the
godless storm of each of them, are waiting
for your mother to walk into her funeral, to
sit next to all of her children at once, to lean
into the soft of her shoulder, for her to whisper
it’s okay son, i’m here now, i’m here
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to the editors of these journals, where some of these poems previously appeared:
The Academy of American Poets: “What the Dead Know by Heart”
Vinyl Poetry and Prose: “Grief, Again,” “Whiteness Shops for a Prayer,” and “Sonnet on Sweet”
The Saint Paul Almanac: “Old Rondo”
For my siblings, each of you. Destiny, your journals gifted me new lan- guage as a child, sorry for invading your privacy. Karl, Tomica, Eric, Ty, A.J.—your patience was necessary. Lamar, Antonio, Antoine—thank you for listening to my rough drafts. Tamiea, Keiony—welcome to the family. Crystal, I hope you’re dancing with Mom; I love you.
For my community, my TruArtSpeaks family—where would I be without your honesty and friendship? Chava, Tamera, Laresa, Lucien, Duncan, Julie, Armand, Ramaj, Tequa—the best teammates I could ask for. Fatima, thank you for making time for my sadness. My mentors—Adam, Khary, Danez, Kyle, Desdemona, your courage inspires mine. Tish Jones—for investing in my teenage angst, for asking me What do you care about? Who are you?
Sarah Ogutu—you understand the methods to my madness. Blythe, Erica, Sam, Sierra, Hieu—thank you for letting me be extra. Sarah Myers—for actively listening. For my teachers, your encouragement led me here— Courtney, Emily, Kevin, Shaun, Amy, the Zosels, the Fiegis.
For those living and deceased who continue to inspire my work. For those who hold me accountable, who let me be human. For my mother, my favorite poet.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Donte is a 21-year-old queer, black poet whose first poem was written at the age of seven about feeling trapped, unheard. Named the first Y
outh Poet Laureate of Saint Paul, Minnesota, they are the author of Autopsy (Button Poetry) and winner of the 2016 Most Promising Young Poet Award from the Academy of American Poets. Collins is the recipient of the 2016 Mitchell Prize in Poetry and is currently a junior at Augsburg College. They are an alum of TruArtSpeaks, a non-profit arts organization based out of the Twin Cities cultivating literacy, leadership and social justice through the study & application of Hip Hop culture, as well as a current board member of Black Table Arts.
Cave Canem founder Toi Derricotte featured Donte in the Academy of American Poets, calling their work “sophisticated and emotionally mature”. Donte’s words cannot sit still and often embody theatrical recitations. Their work holds a knife to systems of oppression and dominant power structures. They wield poetry to collapse normativity and deliver work that is both alluring and challenging. Often centered around intersections of class, race, adoption, sexuality and social justice, Donte uses pause, rhythm, raw fierce emotion, and the marriage between archive and repertoire to reimagine how poetry can be accessible to those who believe the form is dead. National Book Critics Circle Award Recipient Claudia Rankine shared a poem by Donte at the 2016 Dodge Poetry Festival. Donte resides in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where they hibernate during the winter and seriously consider purchasing a warmer yet less fashionable jacket.
OTHER BOOKS BY BUTTON POETRY
If you enjoyed this book, please consider checking out some of our others, below. Readers like you allow us to keep broadcasting and publishing. Thank you!
Sam Sax, A Guide to Undressing Your Monsters
Mahogany L. Browne, smudge
Neil Hilborn, Our Numbered Days
Sierra DeMulder, We Slept Here
Danez Smith, black movie
Cameron Awkward-Rich, Transit
Jacqui Germain, When the Ghosts Come Ashore
Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much
Aaron Coleman, St. Trigger
Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend
Melissa Lozada-Oliva, peluda
William Evans, Still Can’t Do My Daughter’s Hair
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