The Tradition

by Jericho Brown

  Open our mouths for a drink. Rather be radical

  Than a fool. Oh and no,

  We’re not interested in killing

  White people or making them

  Work. Matter of truth, some snorted

  Cocaine until folk started calling it

  White lady. Slavery is a bad idea.

  The more you look like me, the more we

  Agree. Sometimes you is everybody.

  The blk mind is a continuous

  Mind. There is a we. I am among them.

  I am one of the ones. I belong. Oom boom

  Ba boom. I live there where

  We have a right to expect something of the brother.

  Hooking and crooking or punching the clock,

  It’s got to get done. That

  Expectation. Stunning. Incantatory. Blk.

  Power in our 24-hour

  Barbershops. Power in the Stateville

  Correctional Center. Power broke

  Whether I have a car note or not.

  Power under a quilt that won’t unravel, though

  I never met the woman who sewed it

  Or the woman for whom it was a gift

  Before it finally came to me. The blk mind

  Is a continuous mind. I am not a narrative

  Form, but dammit if I don’t tell a story.

  All land owned is land once stolen.

  So the blues people of the world walk

  On water. We will not die. Blk music.

  Blk rage. Blk city of the soul

  In a very cold town. Blk ice is ice you can’t see.

  A Young Man

  We stand together on our block, me and my son,

  Neighbors saying our face is the same, but I know

  He’s better than me: when other children move

  Toward my daughter, he lurches like a brother

  Meant to put them down. He is a bodyguard

  On the playground. He won’t turn apart from her,

  Empties any enemy, leaves them flimsy, me

  Confounded. I never fought for so much—

  I calmed my daughter when I could cradle

  My daughter; my son swaggers about her.

  He won’t have to heal a girl he won’t let free.

  They are so small. And I, still, am a young man.

  In him lives my black anger made red.

  They play. He is not yet incarcerated.

  II

  Duplex

  The opposite of rape is understanding

  A field of flowers called paintbrushes—

  A field of flowers called paintbrushes,

  Though the spring be less than actual.

  Though the spring be less than actual,

  Men roam shirtless as if none ever hurt me.

  Men roam that myth. In truth, one hurt me.

  I want to obliterate the flowered field,

  To obliterate my need for the field

  And raise a building above the grasses,

  A building of prayer against the grasses,

  My body a temple in disrepair.

  My body is a temple in disrepair.

  The opposite of rape is understanding.

  Riddle

  We do not recognize the body

  Of Emmett Till. We do not know

  The boy’s name nor the sound

  Of his mother wailing. We have

  Never heard a mother wailing.

  We do not know the history

  Of this nation in ourselves. We

  Do not know the history of our-

  Selves on this planet because

  We do not have to know what

  We believe we own. We believe

  We own your bodies but have no

  Use for your tears. We destroy

  The body that refuses use. We use

  Maps we did not draw. We see

  A sea so cross it. We see a moon

  So land there. We love land so

  Long as we can take it. Shhh. We

  Can’t take that sound. What is

  A mother wailing? We do not

  Recognize music until we can

  Sell it. We sell what cannot be

  Bought. We buy silence. Let us

  Help you. How much does it cost

  To hold your breath underwater?

  Wait. Wait. What are we? What?

  What on Earth are we? What?

  Good White People

  Not my phrase, I swear,

  But my grandmother’s

  When someone surprised her

  By holding open the door

  Or by singing that same high C

  Stephanie Mills holds

  Near the end of “I Have Learned

  To Respect the Power of Love”

  Or by gifting her with a turkey

  On the 24th of December

  After a year of not tipping her

  For cleaning what they could afford

  Not to clean. You’ll have to forgive

  My grandmother with her good

  Hair and her good white people

  And her certified good slap across

  Your mouth. Crack the beaten door

  To eat or sing, but do not speak

  Evil. Dead bad black woman

  I still love, she didn’t know

  What we know. In America

  Today, anyone can turn on

  A TV or look out a window

  To see several kinds of bird

  In the air while each face watching

  Smiles and spits, cusses and sings

  A single anthem of blood—

  All is stained. She was ugly.

  I’m ugly. You’re ugly too.

  No such thing as good white people.

  Correspondence

  after The Jerome Project by Titus Kaphar

  (oil, gold leaf, and tar on wood panels;

  7" × 10½" each)

  I am writing to you from the other side

  Of my body where I have never been

  Shot and no one’s ever cut me.

  I had to go back this far in order

  To present myself as a whole being

  You’d heed and believe in. You can trust me

  When I am young. You can know more

  When you move your hands over a child,

  Swift and without the interruptions

  We associate with penetration.

  The young are hard for you

  To kill. May be harder still to hear a kid cry

  Without looking for a sweet

  To slip into his mouth. Won’t you hold him?

  Won’t you coo toward the years before my story

  Is all the fault of our imaginations?

  We can make me

  Better if you like: write back. Or take the trip.

  I’ve dressed my wounds with tar

  And straightened a place for you

  On the cold side of this twin bed.

  Trojan

  When a hurricane sends

  Winds far enough north

  To put our power out,

  We only think of winning

  The war bodies wage

  To prove the border

  Between them isn’t real.

  An act of God, so sweet.

  No TV. No novel. No

  Recreation but each

  Other, and neither of us

  Willing to kill. I don’t care

  That I don’t love my lover.

  Knowing where to stroke

  In little light, knowing what

  Will happen to me and how

  Soon, these rank higher

  Than a clear view

  Of the face I’d otherwise

  Flay had I some training

  In combat, a blade, a few

  Matches. Candles are

  Romantic because

  We understand shadows.

  We recognize the shape

  Of what once made us

  Come, so we come
<
br />   Thinking of approach

  In ways that forgo

  Substance. I’m breathing—

  Heaving now—

  In my own skin, and I

  Know it. Romance is

  An act. The perimeter

  Stays intact. We make out

  So little that I can’t help

  But imagine my safety.

  I get to tell the truth

  About what kind

  Of a person lives and who

  Dies. Barefoot survivors.

  Damned heroes, each

  Corpse lit on a pyre.

  Patroclus died because

  He could not see

  What he really was inside

  His lover’s armor.

  The Legend of Big and Fine

  Long ago, we used two words

  For the worth of a house, a car,

  A woman—all the same to men

  Who claimed them: things

  To be entered, each to suffer

  Wear and tear with time, but

  Greater than the love for these

  Was the strong little grin

  One man offered another

  Saying, You lucky. You got you

  A big, fine ______________.

  Hard to imagine so many men

  Waiting on each other to be

  Recognized, every crooked

  Tooth in our naming mouths

  Ready like the syllables

  Of a very short sentence, all

  Of us crying mine, like babies who

  Grab for what must be beautiful

  Since someone else saw it.

  The Peaches

  I choose these two, bruised—

  Maybe too ripe to take, fondling

  As I toss them each

  Into my cart, the smaller

  With its stem somewhat

  Intact—because they remind me

  Of the girls who won’t be girls

  Much longer, both sealed

  And secured like a monarch’s

  Treasure in a basement below

  The basement of the house

  I inherited. I’ve worked hard and want

  To bring them something sweet

  So they know I’ve missed them

  More than anyone else. But first,

  I weigh the peaches, pay

  For them, make the short drive

  To my childhood

  Home of latches, mazes,

  And locked doors. Every key

  Mine now, though I’ve hidden a few

  From myself. I pride myself

  On my gifts. I can fashion for you

  A place to play, and when you think

  It’s dark there, I hand you

  Fruit like two swollen bulbs

  Of light you can hold on to,

  Watch your eyes brighten as you eat.

  Night Shift

  When I am touched, brushed, and measured, I think of myself

  As a painting. The artist works no matter the lack of sleep. I am made

  Beautiful. I never eat. I once bothered with a man who called me

  Snack, Midnight Snack to be exact. I’d oblige because he hurt me

  With a violence I mistook for desire. I’d get left hanging

  In one room of his dim house while he swept or folded laundry.

  When you’ve been worked on for so long, you never know

  You’re done. Paint dries. Midnight is many colors. Black and blue

  Are only two. The man who tinted me best kept me looking a little

  Like a chore. How do you say prepared

  In French? How do you draw a man on the night shift? Security

  At the museum for the blind, he eats to stay

  Awake. He’s so full, he never has to eat again. And the moon goes.

  Shovel

  I am not the man who put a bullet in its brain,

  But I am commissioned to dispose of the corpse:

  Lay furniture plastic next to it and roll it over

  Until it is wrapped, tape with duct tape until

  It is completely contained, lay next to that

  Containment a tarp and roll it over until it is

  Wrapped again, take cheap hardware twine

  And tie it and tie it like a proper gift, a gift

  A good child will give up on opening

  Even come Christmas morning. I am here

  To ignore the stench and throw the dead over

  My left shoulder and carry it to the bed

  Of a stolen truck. I did not steal the truck,

  But there it is, outside the door, engine

  Running. I do the driving and assume someone

  Else must scrub the floors of the body’s blood,

  Scrub the body’s last room of its evidence.

  I do the driving and sing whatever love songs

  The truck’s radio affords me all the way

  To the edge of anywhere hiking families refuse

  To wander, and I dig and dig and dig as

  Undertakers did before the advent of machinery,

  Then lift, again, the dead, and throw, again,

  The dead—quite tired now, winded really,

  But my hands and shoulders and arms and legs

  Unstoppable. I dump the body into the hole

  I myself made, and I hum, some days, one

  Of those love songs, some days, a song I myself

  Make in my spinning head, which is wet

  With sweat that drips into the hole I will not call

  A grave. I sweat into the earth as I repair it.

  I completely cover the dead before I return

  The truck where I assume someone else must

  Scrub it—engine off—of the body’s evidence,

  And I sing, again, those songs because I know

  The value of sweet music when we need to pass

  The time without wondering what rots beneath our feet.

  The Long Way

  Your grandfather was a murderer.

  I’m glad he’s dead.

  He invented the toothbrush,

  But I don’t care to read his name

  On the building I walk through

  To avoid the rain. He raped women

  Who weren’t yet women.

  I imagine the wealth he left

  When you turn red. I imagine you as a baby

  Bouncing on a rapist’s knee. I like my teeth

  Clean. I like to stay warm

  And healthy. I get it. Then I get it

  Again: my oral hygiene and your memory

  Avoiding each other

  Like a girl who walks the long way

  To miss the neighborhood bully, like the bully

  Who’d really rather beat up on somebody

  New. I can’t help you. I can’t hug you.

  I can’t grip your right hand, though

  It never held a gun, though it never

  Covered a lovely mouth, and you can’t pay me

  To cross the ground floor without wishing

  I could spit on or mar some slick surface

  And not think of who will have to do the cleaning.

  We’d all still be poor. I’d end up drenched

  Going around. You’d end remembering

  What won’t lead to a smile that gleams

  In dark places. Some don’t know

  How dark. Some do.

  Dear Whiteness

  Come, love, come lie down, love, with me

  In this king-size bed where we go numb

  For each other letting sleep take us into

  Ease, a slumber made only when I hold

  You or you hold me so close I have no idea

  Where I begin—where do you end?—where you

  Tell me lies. Tell me sweet little lies

  About what I mean to you when

  I’ve labored all day and wish to come

  Home like a war hero who lost an arm.

  That’s how I fight
to win you, to gain

  Ground you are welcome to divide

  And name. See how this mouth opens

  To speak what language you allow me

  With the threat of my head cradled safe.

  Tell me lies. Tell me sweet little lies

  Of what you require, intimacy so industrious

  That when I wake to brush you from my own

  Teeth I see you in the mirror. I won’t stay

  Too long. When you look in that mirror, it

  Will be clean. You’ll be content

  Seeing only yourself. Was I ever there?

  Tell me lies. Tell me. Tell me lies.

  Of the Swan

  The luck of it: my ordinary body

  Once under

  A god. No night ends his

  Care, how

  He finishes a fixed field, how he

  Hollows

  A low tunnel. He released me

  After. Why

  Else pray like a woman

  Ruined

  By an ever-bitter extremity?

  Men die,

  But God’s soul rises out of its black

  Noose, finds

  Bared skin a landscape prepared

  For use—

  Immortality requires worship.

  I was

  The Lord’s opening on Earth,

  A woman

  With feathers strewn round

  My hide.

  Entertainment Industry

  Scared to see a movie

  All the way through

  I got to scream each scene

  Duck and get down

  Mass shooting blues

  When you see me coming

  You see me running

  When you see me running

  You run too

  I don’t have kids

  Cuz I’d have to send them to school

  Ain’t that safe as any

  Plan for parenthood

  Mass shooting blues

  When you see me coming

  You see me running

  If you can beat a bullet

  You oughta run too

  Stake

  I am a they in most of America.

  Someone feels lost in the forest

  Of we, so he can’t imagine

  A single tree. He can’t bear it.

  A cross. A crucifixion. Such

  A Christian. All that wood

  Headed his way in the fact

  Of a man or a woman who

  Might as well be a secret, so

  Serious his need to see inside.

  To cut down. To tell. How

  Old will I get to be in a nation

  That believes we can grow out

  Of a grave? Can reach. Climb

  High as the First State Bank.