Brown

by Kevin Young

  Latifah’s Law. Electric Relaxation.

  Buddy buddy. 93 ’Til Infinity.

  Vainglorious. Passing me by.

  WHEN YOU WERE MINE

  Nothing passed us by. Baby,

  you’re much too fast. In 1990

  we had us an early 80s party—

  nostalgic already,

  I dug out my best

  OPs & two polos, fluorescent,

  worn simultaneously—

  collar up, pretend preppy.

  When Blondie came on—

  Rapture, be pure—

  things really got going & then

  the dancing got shut down

  by some square.

  What was sleep even for?

  HOUSEQUAKE

  What was sleep even for?

  The year before, a freshman, I threw

  a Prince party, re-screwed

  the lights red & blue—

  the room all purple, people

  dancing everywhere—clicked

  PLAY on the cassette till

  we slow-sweated to Erotic

  City, or Do Me Baby. I’m going down

  to Alphabet Street. Did anyone

  sleep alone that night? I Feel

  For You. Shut up already, damn—

  cabbage patch, reverse running man—

  get some life wherever you can.

  POTHOLES IN MY LAWN

  This life. I confess we did look

  somewhat alike, Kenny & I—

  baby dreads, tortoiseshells, tight fade—

  though that night his giant white roommate

  drunk on 8 Ball in the pool room

  called out Kenny, Kenny, even when

  I said I’m not him & he began

  cursing me out—Quit pretending—

  that was too much. Dopplegangers,

  unblood brothers, we should have done

  more with it—dressed as the other

  for Halloween, chanced

  an evil twin movie. No dice.

  Instead we danced, side by side.

  THREE IS THE MAGIC NUMBER

  Twins to the rhythm, we danced,

  as one does—to the remix of Three

  Is the Magic Number—at a house party

  someone threw just because.

  We were black then, about to be

  African American, so folks schoolhouse rocked

  & smurfed whenever we damn well pleased.

  We should have done more, or believed,

  mon frère, mine own body double—

  given the campus cops the slip

  whenever they quizzed or frisked us

  for studying while black. Kenny,

  I hope you’re somewhere

  far from here, dancing away trouble.

  RING THE ALARM [ DUB MIX ]

  Far from here, dancing away troubles,

  Philippe & I nod & bob & start

  to skank in the underground club

  in London, the dub

  so loud across the gigantic room

  we feel it in our lungs.

  We were never young.

  Even then in the bass & boom—

  the DJ’s fits & starts, the woofer’s glottal

  guttural gasp, our ganja-throated rasp—

  we were old, though not enough

  to know. That time he sat silent for hours

  in the corner, high on soul flower? You’re

  messing up my plan, all he could say, after.

  SOUL FLOWER [ BRAND NEW HEAVIES ]

  Afterwards, what can I say, unplanned,

  a decade later, he was dead. Forget friends;

  brothers. Forget it all except how

  the sun is coming up now

  between the buildings—

  is it night, or morning—

  dawn coming on, we hated

  leaving any party early. I hate

  having to write what

  can never capture how thin

  everything was then—

  the beer, or warm cider,

  or us—yet strong enough, son,

  to get the job done.

  I NEED LOVE

  I get the job done, baby,

  I work. Nobody

  can rap quite like

  I can. I’ll take

  you there. Ain’t no

  half steppin. Ain’t no-

  body. Ain’t too proud

  to beg. Ain’t no

  mountain high enough.

  It’s only mountains.

  And the sea. See

  what you done done?

  I’m so tired of being alone.

  I wonder if I take you home.

  FAST CAR [ TRACY CHAPMAN ]

  Taking her home those weeks

  of winter break, dorm snowed in, no one

  around but us, I’d ask

  her, late, to sing to me alone.

  Here in Subcity, life is hard—

  naked behind her guitar

  she’d do her best Tracy Chapman,

  twin bed her smallest stage. Please give

  the President my honest regards. We’d fall

  asleep in her room—bedframe

  narrow as a grave—but not quite

  in love. Our huddled nights

  wouldn’t survive the thaw,

  snow gone too soon, & far.

  U GOT THE LOOK

  Gone too soon, there was that season

  when all the ladies’ bras

  bloomed suddenly fancy because

  by midnight we knew everyone

  would be shirtless, one

  giant groove, swaying along

  to Gett Off, or Funky Drummer

  (Parts 1 & 2), or Sexy M.F.—

  all innocent somehow, beauty

  on the installment plan.

  At least till the horns swoop in.

  This ain’t about the body

  it’s about the mind.

  Yours, or mine?

  WHEN DOVES CRY

  Yours or mine? From this

  great a distance

  I cannot tell which Prince

  records are my father’s

  & which I bought alone. Pop hated Prince

  at first, said he couldn’t sing, nor dance.

  (Then again, neither could he.) Once

  Purple Rain dropped, I flew home from France

  & he asked, Have you heard this?

  The spool of the car’s tape deck

  & it’s the chorus: This is

  what it sounds like. Sneaky devil,

  maybe I’m just like my father,

  my mother silent in the car.

  I WOULD DIE 4 U

  My mother silent all the way

  home, not knowing what to say

  or sing. Me, mugged in Paris two days

  before & then, Easter Sunday,

  a knife pulled on us

  high schoolers from Kansas

  on the metro to Notre Dame, always

  mispronounced. How I prayed

  the entire ride, saw the madman’s

  pockets blooming blades. Take Me

  With U. After, at madrigals the psalms

  barely came. My folks’ marriage

  even my father’s newfound love

  of Prince couldn’t save.

  LITTLE WING

  Save us. So late & still

  our sophomore roo
mmate

  has decided to pull

  out his guitar, plug in & play

  Little Wing, just the first bars,

  over & over, take anything

  you want from me, till we only

  want him to finish, to get, for once,

  to the end. Years later,

  he’ll kill himself—I still don’t

  know how, much less fathom

  why. Carey Monserrate,

  last name a mountain,

  play for us again.

  ALL THAT I GOT IS YOU [ RADIO EDIT ]

  Play it again: soon all will be gone, the places

  I’ve known; Elsie’s, The Tasty, Tommy’s Lunch

  replaced by lobster & prix fixe brunch.

  The cobbler one day disappears like the very

  word cobbler. My dry cleanser now does shoe repair.

  One Potato Two Potato. That druggist I never

  went to. Slowly every bookstore shut down

  or moved—Star, McIntyre & Moore—

  put out like lights. After 180 Years We’re Closing

  Our Doors. Even the Wursthaus—its food

  earning its name—I miss avoiding, proving

  yourself no more a tourist. If lucky we leave

  not just a place but a name. Soon, all gone:

  Tommy’s, The Tasty, Elsie’s, me.

  BUNGLE IN THE JUNGLE

  Me, Thomas, & everyone

  crammed into his room bright

  as a club at closing for the Bungle

  in the Jungle, that party whose goal

  was to get as naked as possible

  without going the whole way. I came,

  not literally, in silkish green paisley

  boxers, little else. Shoes, maybe.

  Once we blew the bass

  blasting Respect or Groove

  Is in the Heart, Thomas shouts

  To the pool! & the parade

  heads thataway, a hundred Adams

  & Eves splashing, making waves.

  FISHERMAN’S BLUES [ THE WATERBOYS ]

  Making waves, I was just plugging in

  a boombox when the counselor

  came & screamed Kevin—

  get these people out of here. Later

  the pool sprung an unlikely leak,

  got closed for good & ill & us.

  Later still I’d climb down with Seamus—

  no shallows—to watch a different play

  with my roommate far more nude

  confessing in Act Two, a-swim in a giant suit,

  than the first when he was mad Sweeney

  cursed naked & muddy in a tree.

  Nice allegory, offered Heaney. Far was fate

  it felt; how could we know how late?

  THE LAST DAY OF OUR ACQUAINTANCE

  How late it would get.

  Every party

  was an after-party.

  Some nights we’d even let

  ourselves forget that dawn

  would soon come. I do not want

  what I haven’t got. Mostly it did.

  Sometimes the morn was met

  less alone, her beauty & scent,

  her buzzed head numbing your arm.

  Once you start, how can you quit

  all this remembering? We make

  love like memories, if lucky

  & not too late.

  THE CHOICE IS YOURS

  Too late. The silence, ours,

  now sounds like the second

  when the music stops—

  not for good, but for a breath

  or two, engine engine

  number nine on the New York

  transit line, if my train

  jumps off the track—

  & now we’re back up.

  O how high we jump.

  Reaching for the sky

  hurricane-purple & a night

  mostly black, dark blue, red.

  Nobody, nobody, was dead. Yet—

  Ode to Ol Dirty Bastard

  F you. Motor

  mouth, clown

  of class warfare,

  welfare millionaire—

  how dare you disappear

  when we need your

  shimmy shimmy ya

  here. Osirus

  of this shiznit, your body’s

  now scattered

  on wax. No monument,

  no fortune left—

  just what you made

  & spent, I hope, on skunk

  weed & worse. Good

  morning heartache.

  Your carelessness

  reminds us how

  quick we are

  to judge, how

  serious things

  done become. Dirty

  as the south, sweet

  as neon cherry pie

  filling from a can.

  I hear folks still call

  your number in Brooklyn

  all hours

  & ask the sleepy, still

  listed Russell Jones

  (no relation)

  come out & play.

  Baby, I got

  your money.

  Big Baby Jesus, Dirt

  McGirt, alias-addict—

  of course you can’t

  be reached—

  you’re too busy, Rusty,

  wigging out, dancing

  in a humpsuit & jheri curl

  toupee, your tiny,

  tacky dreads

  hidden, your grill

  of gold melted

  down to pay off

  St. Pete, or Beezlebub,

  to buy just one more

  dose of freedom.

  FOUR

  The Crescent Limited

  B. B. King Plays Oxford, Mississippi

  A poetry where Saturday night

  meets Sunday morning,

  a midnight music,

  a crossroads sound—

  coming home from the juke

  & heading right to church

  for sunrise service

  & maybe catch a bit

  of that communion wine.

  Butterbeans.

  You know I’m from Mississippi

  I do carry a knife.

  Everybody wants to go to heaven

  but nobody wants to die

  to get there.

  Time to go

  a little further

  up the alley—

  I got a good mind

  to give up living

  & go shopping instead

  to pick out a tombstone

  & be

  pronounced dead.

  Bass

  Where was the music from?

  The bass that woke my son

  sleeping in his room, mom

  out of town,

  so alone

  I’d sung him home.

  He was just about down

  when the beat began

  faraway, filling our noses

  & chests like morning

  coffee, which I don’t take any

  kind of way—though black

  is what you can say

  when they ask

  & they will. Brown boy,

  head back & dream.

  An hour later his busy brain

  stirs him again,

  descending the steep

 
; stairs to ask to sleep

  beside me on the couch,

  cat-curled, quieted

  at last. I rise

  & search the windows to see

  if I might spot the sound—

  still going, louder now,

  its thin thunder

  reaching me, everywhere,

  even here.

  Triptych for Trayvon Martin

  NOT GUILTY [ A FRIEZE FOR SANDRA BLAND ]

  Because the night has no

  number, because

  the thunder doesn’t

  mean rain

  Because maybe

  Because we must

  say your names

  & the list grows

  longer & more

  endless

  I am writing this:

  you are no gun

  nor holster, no

  finger aimed, thumb

  a hammer cocked

  back, all the way—

  I refuse

  to bury you, to inter

  your name in earth

  or to burn you back

  to bone, to what

  we all know, the soft

  song of your skull

  as an infant, the place

  God or your mother

  or same thing

  left untouched

  by hands—

  that halo grown whole

  till they said you weren’t—

  said that Death

  could be your breath—

  could be a body

  or less—& you

  grew more black

  & blue.

  I refuse

  to watch. I refuse.

  Not guilty. Not

  guilty. I know you

  will stay & rise

  like the sea—

  the tide

  all salt & shifting.

  Don’t ever leave.

  LIMBO [ A FRESCO FOR TAMIR RICE ]

  Skeleton-still,

  we stood. Those

  before us who

  Believed, arrayed

  like statues, trophies

  of the child killed