The Robert Watson Literary Prize Poem PIG THERAPIST

I find myself with a wide prospect of Iowa.
Everything here is easy
to say, difficult to imagine. A horizon
of corn that tastes like yellow
wallpaper, and such are the reeds
around lakes of excrement. I’m crying
at the beauty, the fertile smells, the fields
of dreams. Below, there is a pilgrimage
of pigs, from their galaxy of mud
to the consigning hug of thick metal
bars and the veiled entrance
of whatever may come. My beautiful view
is shaded by pig tears, sobs shaking
my green expanse, so I come down
to the march, take my place in their pens,
by their sides, and begin to console,
offer a sermon for their unchosen end.
Touch each crusted hoof.
We cannot blame others for their
wants, their needs. Nuzzle each
wet snout. We can find meaning in
purpose. Run fingers through
hairs on each chin. All we get to
choose is how we respond. I find
I am pretty good at preparing pigs
for death, and they are quiet while
plodding toward their short futures.
I never return to my life. This job smells
too sweet. Listen: all grunting stops,
there is only the sizzle of sun on
pink backs.

THRESHOLD DAYS

Eight hundred years before I tried to kill myself, Galileo studies
    stars—a near-invisible rendezvous.
No telescope in his hand, a chin lifted to the sky and two planets
    traveling together. I can’t be sure if it’s time
that slows down or my attention. Either way, I never refuse an
    invitation from my deepest dark. In my telling,
Galileo writes double-bright down in his notebook, forgets the
    word phenomenon. Here, I recite my inertia—
my lonely invention caught between pilot light and carpet.
    Jupiter and Saturn—a mismatch,
a gaseous incongruity. But in their tracing of the sun, a map to
    keep eyes open. Galileo writes coded letters,
cursive attempts at being noticed and misunderstood.
    And when I discovered how luxurious
my suffering could feel, I understood why we hold revelations
    between our palms—
so we can better keep it for ourselves. Isn’t every word
    written an attempt to outlive ourselves,
to pull closer distant objects? The sky’s dreamblue—
    craters and spirals
and the secrets we place at the center of refusal. Never once
    does Galileo take for granted
the imperfect dancing of satellites. His only instructions—
    how to survive looking backward.

The Amon Liner Poetry Award PILE OF MAGGOTS

It’s a game the newsboys play: a wrestling match
accordioned up to black sky. A smokestack of boys,
one making a ladder of the others. They’re scrappy
& stalagmited, some small as newsprint, smelling of sweat.
A Jenga tower of bravado & Bowery accents. One boy’s
head emerging between another’s knee-pit; one boy
under the rubble with his arms stretched like a searchlight;
one boy at the top until his competitors, like the meat
surrounding a peachpit, bury him. The game ends
when the youngest calls out, Fellas! Please! & they
flatten themselves boy-shaped again—giggling into each other.
I daydream myself fourteen, with a flat cap, ready to tether
my new fists to the nearest mirrored body. A boy abomination
emerging from other boys like limbs of a good, clumsy angel.

IN MY GRANDMOTHER’S GARDEN

for Bernice J. Murphy & Aunt Aggie Jones

in my Grandmother’s garden there grew an unusual fruit
of reinforced calcium that hardened white

over a sweet spongy red and yellow meat
She would pull from underneath the fur and feathers

of frolicking creatures who loved the flavor of Her
eggplants and orange blossoms Her garden looked

like the inside of a gator’s mouth rows and rows of white
protruding outward to enter was to be eaten

consumed by a world She had constructed for Herself away
from words that humbled like mama home & husband

here She ruled between those hours when the moon has
just pulled its starry black blanket over its head to sleep

to block out the sun but the eyes of the world below
have still yet to open though mine did once when i was a boy

who liked to fall asleep in his Grandma’s bed between Her
elbow and rib cage the absent sound of the drum below

Her chest woke me from some long forgotten dimension
and led me out of the house behind the shed and down

the trail of bones where i found Her filling a basket with dark
purple humming a gospel not yet written still being made

bounced back and forth from heart to tongue from tongue to teeth
the lips tight pressed still not ready for whole words to escape

and She never stopped when She saw me just smiled and kept
fondling every purple torso gently squeezing and kneading

at each part of the skin before deciding to pluck or walk away
i had so many questions but this was a place w/out words

w/out wonder w/out a need to be defined or explained or in awe
a place w/out the need to know where and an appreciation

for things that just were where the sound of a single syllable
might break the barrier between existing and living

the same barrier found between plant and people for here
She was satisfied content with whatever was given and also not

but never once did i join Her in the minutes spent in the attendance
taking of fellow fruit just patiently waited until the basket was full

in my Grandmother’s garden it felt like She wasn’t my Grandmother
that we weren’t related. here            Shewas something more honored

The Greensboro Review Literary Award Poem HAVE YOU BEEN TO THE PALISADES

To the spot where the log burns blue?
From the side of your mouth, the word heartwood falls out

and inside of that, a Tupperware containing fog.
It’s mixed pickles—everyone loving the deli guy

but no one remembering his name.
I feel like I am him. I fall down like a fountain,

scrape both knees. I learn photosynthesis
is when your arms go around me.

In those days, we called it Julia Mountain
because Julia loved the mountain

and the mountain loved her too.
Then she moved to Kalamazoo.

Once, I was a child and once I was a bug.
Once, you spilled gallons of milk by virtue of spilling

just a little milk each day. I was the whole Pulaski Skyway,
crossing and uncrossing my legs.

It came to me eventually, his name was Jeff,
and like Jeff, I’ve been forgotten

in the fold of a stranger’s wallet.
The tarp flaps its dream at us and for a second,

I’m in the canopy during gym class—
you count to five, and we all run in.

The wind ruffles our pockets and we lift up our eyes.
Pulling your head through the sweater hole,

you stretch out the morning’s light.
The day goes rising, wiggles its ears.

I WISH I HAD A HEAD FOR NUMBERS

no I don’t
I’ve seen what those heads look like
the special instruments required to clean them
how hard it is to keep flowers alive in them
how little effect Debussy has
I wish I didn’t even have a head
so much as a floating pyramid
with an inner incandescent furnace
where tiny robotic scarabs tend
the cocoons of wonderous future concepts
here drink this you’ll glow
this spray can make anything invisible
free money comes in balloons
the various agatizing processes
providing myriad translucence
to what’s usually crushed
but actually it’s my heart that needs help
it don’t cry right
punch me in the gut I feel it in my ear
none of it adds up
not the machete and the mouse
not how everything’s made of broken glass

VOICEOVER

When I tell you I don’t sleep
I hope you’ll take me seriously.
I really am a walking shroud
most days. The undead in me
is the life of me, but not
for the life of me, however hard
I may try to make myself depend on it.
My clothes are mud and grass and mud,
or no, they’re really not. But you aren’t here
to see, and I wish you were, like I wish
a lot of things, including for more wishes.
So the genie inside me is a tracksuit,
red or blue with white stripes.
You get to decide what it means
when the philosophers say things
like “either Beauty is a real property
of things in the world or when we speak of it
we gibber.” The problem is nobody speaks
about Beauty anymore, and even if they did
I’d be staring into a mosh pit with my nose
bleeding all over the floor and trying
to find my way back into the Tsunami.
As far as I can see, neither the sky
nor any ocean has definiteness, order,
and symmetry, so Aristotle was wrong
about a good many things. Just so.
It was a different time and a different place.
Context does matter. And I should explain
the Aristotle reference, but I don’t feel like it.
I am wrong, too, about almost everything,
even in this context. Have you seen the Shasta daisies?
They aren’t Shasta daisies. They’re daubs
of white paint that any addict might snort.
O monotony! O too tired blinking outer space stars!
My addictions are too numerous to list,
but they’re always coming out of my fingers
and mouth, my nostrils and ear holes
and assholes and dick holes. You don’t need
to be embarrassed, the shroud shrouds all.
And the fact that I remember my mother
in the snow probably isn’t germane
to any of this or beer soap or succulents
or a skin bag full of hooks. Sometimes
my gill slits don’t work like they’re supposed to.
And when I hear my own voice, it reminds me
just how stupid I really sound and am, but
maybe everybody feels a little off
in the devices of their own associations.
I feel like running water where the running
never ends. That really is a pipe dream.
No pun intended.

AARON THE MOOR

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.

OTHELLO THE MOOR

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.

The Amon Liner Poetry Award BROKEN SHOWERHEAD

 

Water pleas mercy before landing at the bottom of my shower. A loud smack announces contact with the black paint my landlord swears is waterproof.I put a blue towel down when Momma calls to ask, what was the best thing about your childhood? I breathe in before saying, it was my sweet sixteen party. Momma, clad in captain’s hat drove a decked-out school bus so me and friends could watch Titanic at a secret location. It’s my second favorite movie. I loved that Momma and Mama T smiled in sync. Two sisters reunited after the fault of addiction collapsed. Mama T made nachos and Momma made powdered sweet tea. In that moment, we were all teeth and all together. Back then Momma ain’t have to enforce Mama T to take her Skittles. Mama T danced my conception with a man I’m afraid to know. Momma took me in her arms at age one and changed my name. She said your name means dominion. But where is the kingdom I rule, if I am stuck on this bathroom floor watching the towel disintegrate? I can still hear water knock its head against the shower floor. Although I can’t sleep, I must say I enjoy that it doesn’t call on my birthday and vanish when I ask about lineage or loss or cause. Momma asks instead, what is the best thing I poured into you? I mosaic light bulbs and forgiveness and violins when all I meant to say was gratitude.