Autopsy

by Donte Collins

  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.

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