Believe me, Queen, your swart Cimmerian
Doth make your honor of his body’s hue,
Spotted, detested, and abominable.
Titus Andronicus, Act 2, Scene 3

When we bring others into our lives,
we bring all their life into ours: not only
their family, their secrets, their dirty socks,

but also the warmth of their body next to ours,
which allows us to accept all the challenges
of our lust to belong. Aaron understands,

embracing the blood beating
between him and Tamora and the blood
hammering in his head between him and his foes.

But what’s the deal with this brother?
Jumping in bed with a Goth girl like that.
Running around in a country not his own,

beating his chest like that. He acts
like he doesn’t know those Andronicus boys
would kill him just as soon as swat a fly.

Aaron, who walks through their starlit lives
like a black hole filled with every desire
they ever desired, knows the snares of life

and, so, chooses to live his life with a vengeance.
There’s power in not apologizing for being
in the world, for embracing the legacy revealed

through, and adorned with, your skin. Yes,
coal-black is better than another hue.
When every doorway opens to another closed door,

why should he behave like a welcomed guest?
His body’s hue holds many colors,
and with the gift of his tone, he speaks

his mind through a prism of words. Yeah,
for this alone he could do prison time.
Next thing you know, every crime committed,

even crimes committed by their own hand,
gets blamed on the new brother in town,
and they’d just as soon chop off their own hand

before admitting their own wrong; they’d
cut out a tongue, before allowing someone
to tell the truth, but let’s be real:

These people can’t be trusted
because they can’t trust themselves.
But Aaron knows he’s not a traveler

in a foreign land but himself wherever he lands.
And all the water in the ocean
can never turn the swan’s legs white.

Andronicus may try to narrow
his choice between being a villain or a slave,
as the executioner’s blade raises,

but Aaron the Moor, the man, chooses
to lift his truth above the blade,
which can’t swing true enough

to silence the cut of his tongue.

Only a Black face throwing light could cast so many shadows.
Only a Black man in charge could garner so many foes.

When only a Black general, when only a black lover,
when your only black friend is only yourself . . .

when your Desdemona’s so white she doesn’t understand
what went wrong. When you’re the only Moor, white men

say things like, “Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago.”
Desdemona looks for you with a candle in the daytime,

but you still don’t see her. You can’t see her
when you can’t see yourself. Only the whites

of the eyes of the whites see behind you.
Only the eyes of the Moor eyes the shifting of the day.

When proof appears, who appears behind the man?
Even a handkerchief, dyed in mummy, the color

of your own hand, reveals a foreign touch.
You want to touch the truth with your eyes,

so you can see the magic in the web of your wife.
But even your body, begrimed in beauty, can’t be trusted,

if you don’t trust your own life.

On May 15, 1970, the Jackson State killings occurred on the campus of Jackson State College (now Jackson State University) in Jackson, Mississippi. On May 14, 1970, a group of student protesters against the Vietnam War were confronted by city and state police. Shortly after midnight, the police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve. The event happened only eleven days after National Guardsmen killed four students in similar protests at Kent State University in Ohio. The Kent State incident captured national attention; the Jackson State killings did not.

 

*

 

A bullet comes through the air. It’s not fair

simply to fear them as projectiles;

often they are warnings. That is

to say, they sound out through time,

running up ahead to let us know

the terrain before us does not welcome

our kind, almost singing a single note

of advice: run.

 

 

I.

 

Above us, squinting through the scope,

above us frowning, sharpening the focus,

pain and quirk and need, what else does he call for,

 

he who wields the secret to death?

What else scares us . . . what else do we scare?

What else rustles the leaves, nervous,

trying to remain calm?

 

Courage and warmth, what else

ended today as the clouds opened,

spreading the clarity of light?

 

I remember how the sky winced, gray and opaque,

and then, wide-eyed, what else did the day do?

Did dandelions lift from their stalks?

What else got the hell out of the way?

 

What else got caught in the crossfire,

in the wake of the whistling? I can’t see

you for the fuselage of the city,

littering the air, strewn across pavement.

 

I still long

for the mundane moment

before the seed, the seed that does not grow,

got planted in my chest.

 

What else sowed but did not reap?

Was I the harvest? Was I not meant to yield?

 

 

II.

 

Spring came and the sun came and both left

a hole where warmth once fell like a salve

for the chill and the sting of the chill.

 

Nightfall. Now, nothing behaves like spring.

Earlier, clouds burned off the sky

but no one celebrates a clear day

filled with violence. No platitudes

 

get exchanged after a killing,

sometimes after a death but never after a killing.

Who cares about the weather?

 

Who cares who won the game?

I see my body but I cannot feel

as others touch my body. Did I

 

ever feel my body respond

to the response of another’s body?

What’s the point of asking this question?

 

Under the night air, coolness prevails.

A cool, spring night, someone will say

walking their dog before going to bed.

 

Will they know how violent the day was

before dark? We think of violence happening

at night. Once more, a day stretches

 

possibility to the limit. Someone wakes

to the possibility, asserting, as their feet

touch the cold floor at the side of their bed,

 

a new day. A future of which they cannot

conceive. A death they won’t believe

unless it actually finds them.

 

 

III.

 

Some bodies had fallen out of fear

like animals freezing still when facing

a predator. Some bodies got shot

 

but not shot dead. Their lives

continue but with wounds we’ll never see;

these wounds won’t heal.

 

Some flew like prey across the veldt

of the campus quad, flew on their legs,

flew without grace, like prey will do,

 

pissing and shitting themselves,

surviving. Some have names we will forget.

They won’t mind; they took off running

 

to be forgotten. Me? I was once promising.

I stood there, looking into the sun. Above me,

the roof tops, the clock tower, the glint

 

of the gun. Stand still and watch

as people come back into the scene;

that’s what I’ll do, I said.

 

People, still, will not remember my name,

maybe they’ll mention me tonight

as they lie down in the dark

 

after they turn off the news, but once the screen

on the set powers off, I’ll lie as dead

as the distance one crosses through the night

believing there will be a sunrise.

TRUTH

Albert Einstein to Mileva Maric

 

Your eyes hold enough lies

Day-to-day walking through the market,

A woman walking freely without

The sleight of hand of my skin, this peccadillo.

 

What rests inside me will rise

Out my mouth to kiss you, to kiss

My confession into you each day, Mileva.

Will the truth offer you some freedom

 

Or will I simply invite you to sit in my prison?

Wouldn’t life play better if you visited me

In this cell, conjugal visits in which we pretend

We’re free? I’ll ask for you to come to me,

 

And I’ll tell you to leave me, eternally

Coming and going like the rain. I told you

Only that I’m a man, only through how I hold you,

How I look in your eyes, like stars announce

 

They’re stars by the dance and death of their light.

But you look sad as if you know now

What you must not know.

Our bodies cast a shadow of one

Body under a black-bulb pulse

In your mother’s basement. Light, even

 

When it’s black, moves faster than

Youth or old age; it’s the constant in

Our lives. But I remember when

 

I thought your house—always ready for

A party, even during the week—

Was the fastest element in my life.

 

Toenails, lint, teeth,

Eyes—everything was holy

Under the glow. I suspect

 

Even my bones were ultraviolet

When we danced, which was always more

Of a grind than a dance.

 

Whether the song sung came

From Rick James or Barry White,

We called what we did in the coatroom

 

Dancing, too: My hands, infrared

Under your dress, but innocent: We

Were only kids, after all,

 

I was 16 and you were a woman of 18.

Already, we knew how to answer each other

Without asking questions, how to satisfy by seeing

 

What nearly satisfied looked like

In each other’s faces. This all before

I ran out to sneak back into my mother’s

 

House in the middle of the night.

But, now, it’s eight years later,

You’re walking, it seems, so I offer

 

You a ride. And you look in and smile.

And when I see you I wonder

What would have happened

 

If we had stayed in touch. I have to get back

To work the next morning in DC,

A five-hour drive; it’s near dark

 

And I want to get on the road before night

Falls completely, but I stop anyway.

It’s been too many years.

 

And I mistake your gesture.

And then I realize you

Don’t really recognize me,

 

Until you back away and turn

On your heels.

Then a man with a Jheri curl

 

And a suit that looks like it’s woven

From fluorescent thread

Walks up and looks at me

 

Like I wasn’t born in this town,

And for the first time in my life,

I question it myself. He walks up as slow

 

And sure as any old player should on Sunday night.

While walking away, you two exchange

Words. You don’t look back. But

 

We see each other in our heads—aglow,

Half-naked—under our black-bulb pulse

In your mother’s basement. Given a diadem

 

By the lucid night and the streetlamp’s

Torch, the man wearing the fluorescent

Suit casts a broad shadow

 

Like a spotlight into which you step.

Maybe he’s the reason we’re here tonight

Beneath these dim stars, casting

 

A light true enough . . . finally,

For us, after all these years, to see each other.

                       (Ousmane Sembene, 1966)

 

I listened to the palavering: birds with car horns

as the sun went down. Once I began

 

to understand their conversations, I started my days

by eavesdropping like a citizen of privilege

 

and apathy. Antibes reminds me

of Dakar the way a new lover brings

 

to mind the mistakes I made with the one before.

As I pass other women in the marketplace,

 

home is soon clouded in memory

by the air of authority festering

 

behind sunglasses, amid cigarette smoke.

All faces look alike and no face reminds me

 

of anyone I knew from another life.

Yesterday, I was introduced as “our girl,”

 

a possessive I’ve never felt in my country.

The gift I offer now is a face behind a mask,

 

a mask of a face to haunt them

long after mine fades away behind it.

 

Dear young couple, you

who hired me to look after your young,

 

give up on the roman à clef in which you

 

imagined me as a nameless character.

 

Give up on subterfuge to control

the woman you imagined me to embody.

 

My body, lifeless, politically still,

still has a chance to rustle a few trees

 

inside your aristocratic heads.

                                       (Satyajit Ray, 1955)

 

When a child dies before you do, remember:

forget this pain. But keep her laugh, a totem to remember.

 

It’s spring. The rain pelts the forest leaves like tears falling

down a mother’s face; she tries not to remember.

 

In the Jatra, the brother protects his sister from the cold.

The actors on stage sing their story, so you’ll remember.

 

Why steal a banana or jackfruit? Even the Devil’s Apple

      couldn’t

cure her fever. Fruit belongs to all, but too few remember.

 

In Kaash fields, we ran for the train, laughing, out of breath,

Kans grass whipping our ankles . . . Do you remember?

 

The path winds long, and the path to love often brings strain;

endurance calls for more than shoes for your journey, do

      remember.

Sustained on the road, prepared for any storm ahead,

 

the path is a line in your palm, little Apu. Remember.