by Kevin Young
We couldn’t bear
to dust
or box away.
The dark arch
to the lost teen’s
bedroom, jersey
Now empty, baseball team
down a man—
out with an injury.
Wild pitch. Passed ball.
Technical knockout.
Technical foul.
Flagrant two. The flagration
of the car turned over
he lay dead beside
A good while.
Dark dye
seeping into the street.
No pop flies. No catch—
player to be
named later—
No sheet we’ll provide—
Just the blue-tail fly
doornailed, hungry,
Fit to die.
NIGHTSTICK [ A MURAL FOR MICHAEL BROWN ]
There are gods
of fertility,
corn, childbirth,
& police
brutality—this last
is offered praise
& sacrifice
near weekly
& still cannot
be sated—many-limbed,
thin-skinned,
its colors are blue
& black, a cross-
hatch of bruise
& bulletholes
punched out
like my son’s
three-hole notebooks—
pages torn
like lungs, excised
or autopsied, splayed
open on a cold table
or left in the street
for hours to stew.
A finger
is a gun—
a wallet
is a gun, skin
a shiny pistol,
a demon, a barrel
already ready—
hands up
don’t shoot—
arms
not to bear
but bare. Don’t
dare take
a left
into the wrong
skin. Death
is not dark
but a red siren
who will not blow
breath into your open
mouth, arrested
like a heart. Because
I can see
I believe in you, god
of police brutality—
of corn liquor
& late fertility, of birth
pain & blood
like the sun setting,
dispersing its giant
crowd of light.
A Brown Atlanta Boy Watches Basketball on West 4th. Meanwhile, Neo-Nazis March on Charlottesville, Virginia.
Here the pain
mostly goes away.
A stinger someone tries
walking off, his face a mask.
He’s giving you
the ball Jay,
he’s giving you the ball—
Gary with the attack—
Thaddeus is having
the game of his life,
the MC says. Old men
watch in their grey mustaches
mouthing salt peanuts—
or toothpicks,
or day-old gum—
chewing the fat.
You see that?
He needs to just put
that back up.
The uniforms black
& blue as a bruise.
Must ignore the need
cuz we the news—
here every call
is wrong, all
fouls technical—
even here black
means guest, not home.
Forget about the refs,
they already told us
shut up. It’s us
against them
Let’s go.
Howlin’ Wolf
In Parchman Prison
in stripes standing
guitar gripped like a neck
strangled strummed
high strung & hard.
Mostly you moan
see how heavy
your hands hang with-
out women or words
we cannot
quite know. How is this
not hell being made
to make music here where
music only makes time
go slow cloudy
like blue
Depression glass? Under
the hard sun of your smile
we see stripes like those
that once lined the slave’s
unbent back
blood & gunk
spit it out
a song low down
gutbucket
built for comfort
not built for speed.
Gimme the brack
of the body the blue
the bile all
you sing or howl.
If a wolf then lone
then orphan then hangry
enough to enter into town
to take food from the mouths
of low houses a hen
a stray it is never
enough. You don’t need
tell me why
we here you know
better black
as an exclamation point
the men all around
you in stripes
how long their sentences
their dark faces ellipses
everywhere accidental.
The white man
in front proud
or is it prideful
he wears no number
& now exiled under
the earth no one
recalls his name.
Yours a dark wick
waiting we burn
wanting you to step
into song
to again howl
till you sweat through
your shirt & two
white handkerchiefs
a revival
preacher waving
praise no flag
of surrender—
the guitar a blunt
instrument your hair
your shoes even your
voice shines.
Repast
an oratorio in honor of Mister Booker Wright of Greenwood, Mississippi
BARKEEP ACTIVIST WAITER
[ HOSPITALITY BLUES ]
Welcome. Have a seat—
the audience sits.
I insist. I’m your host.
Your money is no
good here, no good
here no good
no good
no good.
Your money is no good.
Here. Your money
is no god here no—Glad
to see you all. We don’t
have a written menu
I’ll be glad to tell you
what we’re going to serve
tonight tonight tonight
Uptempo:
We have fresh shrimp
cocktails Lusco shrimp
fresh oysters on the half shell
baked oysters oysters
Rockefeller oysters almondine
stewed oysters fried oysters
Spanish mackerel broil whetstone
sirloin steak club steak T-bone
steak porterhouse steak ribeye
steak Lusco special steak mushrooms
flavor of garlic Italian spaghetti
& meatballs softshell crab
French fried onions golden
brown donut style
Best food in the world
the world the world
the world is served at Lusco’s
He nods & rocks
Tell my people what you got.
[ THE HEAD WAITER’S LAMENT ]
The hardest thing is knowing
when you’re free. Easy
to see when you’re not—
when the wind don’t
make a dent in how the fig
falls from the tree, or your
mouth never fed enough—
or your child-
ren, how much
to tell them? The meaner
the man be, the more
you smile.
When do you talk
about it, the men—
never one—who come
for you, burning
& cutting & crossing—
even a pistol
can be made a whip—
just for you saying
what’s true. Not
what you’re taught.
That’s a good nigger.
That’s my
nigger. Brush your
taut dark hair.
[ RESERVATIONS ]
Some call me Booker,
some call me John, some
call me Jim, some call me—
This is my place
I say, meaning where
I work but more
the green bar I tend
& keep, the mouths I feed
not only my child-
ren, who I want better for
than me—the slenderest
tall trees. The willows
who weep. What should
my place be? It is loudest
here after the black descends,
gathers in the Mississippi
leaves, first green then
dark like me—my first
name’s Mack but nobody
calls me that. I’m named
for a man who made
his name at Tuskegee
which ain’t that
far from here
I hear.
[ BOOKER’S PLACE ]
It’s the haze that hurts.
Sometimes far worse
than when the sun
spits its rays
all over your face—
them days you brown
& redden, the work
can be like
to kill you—
so a man need
a place to go inside
his head & walk around
& rest. There’s a juke
joint of the soul, somewhere
you can have yourself
something cold, or brown
burning water—we used
to get ice in fresh, cut
from giant blocks,
sawdust, clean glasses
& good good food. I kept
the bar sparkling, shiny
as the teeth of the couples
on calendars behind me
staring into each other’s eyes.
Budweiser in cans, Nehi,
Drink Coca-Cola
Bottled up. This was my place—
a green room, a somewhere
you could twist, maybe spin
a partner on the dance floor
or just set a spell
& tap your foot, mine,
taking it all in.
We never let anyone
carry on too long
& made sure they carried
themselves home safe
beside the tracks
that also kept
their crosses, clanging—
that train red,
an eye,
then blue, bearing
down on you.
[ WAITING ]
So this is what I said:
Now that’s what my customers—
I say my customers—
be expecting of me. Booker,
Tell my people what you got.
Some people nice,
some people not.
What’s wrong with you
why you not smiling?
Go over & get me
so & so and so & so.
And I keep that smile.
Always learn to smile
Although you’re crying
on the inside.
Sometime he’ll tip you
Sometime he’ll say,
I’m not going to tip
that nigger, he don’t look
for no tip. Yessir,
thank you.
What’d you say?
Yes sir, boss,
I’m your nigger.
But remember
you got to keep that smile.
Night after night
I lay down & I dream
about what I had
to go through with.
That’s what I’m struggling for.
I’m trying to make
a living.
For this they whipped
me good, but not dead.
[ DEATH’S DICTIONARY ]
A shack made of ribs.
A house made of out.
A car made of rust.
A smile made of doubt.
A house made of fire.
A magician’s gesture.
Of cards. Of the Lord.
As preacher, pats his brow.
A joint made of juke.
A twist. A night away.
A wood made of green.
Of blood.
The kerchief now a bandage.
A place in the sun.
A house made of railroad.
A shack of shotgun.
[ A GLOSSARY OF UPPITY ]
For please, please read
forget you.
For sun,
read none.
For love, read
money.
For money, read.
For smile, read
Bless Your Heart.
For uppity
read siddity.
For siddity
read dicty.
For dicty, hincty.
For pleasure.
For unknowing.
For forgetting
read mystery.
For smile
read speak.
For hush
read shush
read shut up
read don’t
you dare.
For dare, read sure.
For speak up
read speak out.
For the future
say now.
For my children.
For ever.
Thy trumpet
tongue.
Thy work
never done.
For Thee—
; read We.
[ PINING, A Definition ]
Look like last night
the light hardly wanted
to leave—it hung
round in the pines
for what seemed hours
after the sun said
its goodbyes. Sometimes
can get hard
to just go, you know—
we stand around talking
not noticing the dark
rising up around
our feet.
Stand up & maybe
stretch & see
ourselves home. We
be a gas station dog
waiting for something
to fall, so we
can eat awhile
& sleep. When morning
decides to wake
maybe just this once
it’ll be late
& we can join the table
already set, like fate—
welcomed by the knives—
& just from the scent
of something someone we love
cooked for us
feel fed.
Those who are able, please rise—
[ SUNDAYING ]
And everyone working
the drive-thru is beautiful
smiling just
like the commercial
Thanks, I will
have a good day
& a double
cheeseburger too
And without complaint
the birds wake
you early
sun against the skin
Somewhere smell
of a grill
Cut grass & gasoline
And the church lady
her hat a bouquet
saying Hello
Hello
The sun a giant melon
And we’re not getting
any younger
but today no older neither
And why not
live forever
Why not wait
till tomorrow
to pay the phone
the gas electric
Why not pray
for a tie
instead of a win
for the game to go
long, on & on,
a million innings
Whistle
And then he can whistle
this son, moon
of mine
circling, the name
we gave to the far side
of the satellite,
this thunder
in the near distance
heralding summer,
grown thirsty,
plummeting down
suddenly, drenching
