Brown

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