It's a day when all the dogs of all
the borrowed houses are angel footing
down the hard hardwood of middle-America's
newly loaned-up renovated kitchen floors,
and the world's nicest pie I know
is somewhere waiting for the right
time to offer itself to the wayward
and the word-weary. How come the road
goes coast to coast and never just
dumps us in the water, clean and
come clean, like a fish slipped out
of the national net of "longing for joy."
How come it doesn't? Once, on a road trip
through the country, a waitress walked
in the train's diner car and swished
her non-aproned end and said,
"Hot stuff and food too." My family
still says it, when the food is hot,
and the mood is good inside the open windows.
I'd like to wear an apron for you
and come over with non-church sanctioned
knee-highs and the prettiest pie of birds
and ocean water and grief. I'd like
to be younger when I do this, like the country
before Mr. Meriwether rowed the river
and then let the country fill him up
till it killed him hard by his own hand.
I'd like to be that dog they took with them,
large and dark and silent and un-blamable.
Or I'd like to be Emily Dickinson's dog, Carlo,
and go on loving the rare un-loveable puzzle
of woman and human and mind. But, I bet I'm more
the house beagle and the howl and the obedient
eyes of everyone wanting to make their own kind
of America, but still be America, too. The road
is long and all the dogs don't care too much about
roadside concrete history and postcards of state
treasures, they just want their head out the window,
and the speeding air to make them feel faster
and younger, and newer than all the dogs
that went before them, they want to be your only dog,
your best-loved dog, for this good dog of today
to be the only beast that matters.

On the fifth day

the scientists who studied the rivers

were forbidden to speak

or to study the rivers.

The scientists who studied the air

were told not to speak of the air,

and the ones who worked for the farmers

were silenced,

and the ones who worked for the bees.

Someone, from deep in the Badlands,

began posting facts.

The facts were told not to speak

and were taken away.

The facts, surprised to be taken, were silent.

Now it was only the rivers

that spoke of the rivers,

and only the wind that spoke of its bees,

while the unpausing factual buds of the fruit trees

continued to move toward their fruit.

The silence spoke loudly of silence,

and the rivers kept speaking

of rivers, of boulders and air.

Bound to gravity, earless and tongueless,

the untested rivers kept speaking.

Bus drivers, shelf stockers,

code writers, machinists, accountants,

lab techs, cellists kept speaking.

They spoke, the fifth day,

of silence.

—2017

For our New York Cities

From sun’s first shine, we walk all day

through a dream surreal, our minds wander

a new world from inside windowsills.

We go to bed half asleep,

eyes defiant for the crave of news feed,

quenching our dread on the bad blood of blue light

not sent from the moon.

We are devastate-aching,

this can’t be happening,

a nation stationed inside the nightmare

of a leader unfit for awakening.

We grieve in solitary solidarity

for our country, our New York cities; their subways

riding ghosted through the choking channels of our lungs—

those throats that have known

I can’t breathe

far before our collective chests could not.

We grieve for every building of our boroughs,

from section eight to the unfinished skyscraper’s crane.

Buildings busting with bodies or abandoned by them:

bodies that dance, bodies that sleep,

bodies that virtual meet, eat and drink.

Bodies that cease.

We grieve the gravity

of having to die alone

in a city built on never having to be.

And though our bridges are orphaned arches

left to hold up the sky’s condolences,

they still do connect us.

They still do connect us.

Connect us,

to the cabin fever daughters

watching over high fevered grandfathers.

Connect us to the warrior first responders,

nurses and exhausted doctors,

the recovering sick finally taking off ventilators.

Connect us,

to the maskless, the homeless,

the hopeless, the jobless,

our locals: bars, bodegas and bath houses,

our silent Brooklyn streets empty as ancient desert streams

holding only the echoes of ambulance screams.

Connect us,

to the cherry blossoms standing guard in full blush

while cops bloom ribbons of yellow tape at their gates.

Us, connected

by airborne whispers between walkups,

of missed rhythm, longing for the public pull

of prior swagger,

us, connected

by the daydream of lawless rush hour taxis

rubbing up against each other’s paint,

kissing the ears of each other’s rearviews,

us, yearning

for the crowded irritants

of sweltering avenues

budding with beech trees and brisk walkers.

Us, missing

the middle fingers of strangers,

the playlists of basketball courts

and schoolyard sabotage,

the lights bright over Broadway,

lights low in the Bowery,

lights out at The Chelsea

where Sid did in Nancy.

Us, singing

love poems to neighbors over balconies,

from the soapbox of apartment steps,

a Cyrano of stoops.

Connected by the density of front doors,

the clanging of steam hammer pipes

running through our floors

like the floating notes of festival encores.

Us, dreaming,

still dreamers,

for every future hand

we’ll shake, dap and hold

O, how we will hold you

our eyes lifting from the drift,

breaking open, free

to a new dawning—

wake up! See!—

how we hold you, New York cities,

how we hold you, never letting go.

who will be the messenger of this land

count its veins

speak through the veins

translate the language of water

navigate the heels of lineage

who will carry this land in parcels

paper, linen, burlap

who will weep when it bleeds

and hardens

forgets to birth itself

who will be the messenger of this land

wrapping its stories carefully

in patois of creole, irish,

gullah, twe, tuscarora

stripping its trees for tea

and pleasure

who will help this land to

remember its birthdays, baptisms

weddings, funerals, its rituals

denials, disappointments

and sacrifices

who will be the messengers

of this land

harvesting its truths

bearing unleavened bread

burying mutilated crops beneath

its breasts

who will remember

to unbury the unborn seeds

that arrived

in captivity

shackled, folded,

bent, layered in its

bowels

we are their messengers

with singing hoes

and dancing plows

with fingers that snap

beans, arms that

raise corn, feet that

cover the dew falling from

okra, beans, tomatoes

we are these messengers

whose ears alone choose

which spices

whose eyes alone name

basil, nutmeg, fennel, ginger,

cardamom, sassafras

whose tongues alone carry

hemlock, blood root, valerian,

damiana, st. john’s wort

these roots that contain

its pleasures its languages its secrets

we are the messengers

new messengers

arriving as mutations of ourselves

we are these messengers

blue breath

red hands

singing a tree into dance

When the pickup truck, with its side mirror,

almost took out my arm, the driver’s grin

reflected back; it was just a horror

show that was never going to happen,

don’t protest, don’t bother with the police

for my benefit, he gave me a smile—

he too was startled, redness in his face—

when I thought I was going, a short while,

to get myself killed: it wasn’t anger

when he bared his teeth, as if to caution

calm down, all good, no one died, ni[ght, neighbor]—

no sense getting all pissed, the commotion

of the past is the past; I was so dim,

he never saw me—of course, I saw him.

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

i have diver’s lungs from holding my
breath for so long. i promise you
i am not trying to break a record
sometimes i just forget to
exhale. my shoulders held tightly
near my neck, i am a ball of tense
living, a tumbleweed with steel-toed
boots. i can’t remember the last time
i felt light as dandelion. i can’t remember
the last time i took the sweetness in
& my diaphragm expanded into song.
they tell me breathing is everything,
meaning if i breathe right i can live to be
ancient. i’ll grow a soft furry tail or be
telekinetic something powerful enough
to heal the world. i swear i thought
the last time i’d think of death with breath
was that balmy day in july when the cops
became a raging fire & sucked the breath
out of Garner; but yesterday i walked
38 blocks to my father’s house with a mask
over my nose & mouth, the sweat dripping
off my chin only to get caught in fabric & pool up
like rain. & i inhaled small spurts of me, little
particles of my dna. i took into body my own self
& thought i’d die from so much exposure
to my own bereavement—they’re saying
this virus takes your breath away, not
like a mother’s love or like a good kiss
from your lover’s soft mouth but like the police
it can kill you fast or slow; dealer’s choice.
a pallbearer carrying your body without a casket.
they say it’s so contagious it could be quite
breathtaking. so persistent it might as well
be breathing                        down your neck—

^{acrostic golden shovel}

America is loving me to death, loving me to death slowly, and I
Mainly try not to be disappeared here, knowing she won’t pledge
Even tolerance in return. Dear God, I can’t offer allegiance.
Right now, 400 years ago, far into the future―it’s difficult to
Ignore or forgive how despised I am and have been in the
Centuries I’ve been here—despised in the design of the flag
And in the fealty it demands (lest I be made an example of).
In America there’s one winning story—no adaptations. The
Story imagines a noble, grand progress where we’re all united.
Like truths are as self-evident as the Declaration states.
Or like they would be if not for detractors like me, the ranks of
Vagabonds existing to point out what’s rotten in America,
Insisting her gains come at a cost, reminding her who pays, and
Negating wild notions of exceptionalism—adding ugly facts to
God’s-favorite-nation mythology. Look, victors get spoils; I know the
Memories of the vanquished fade away. I hear the enduring republic,
Erect and proud, asking through ravenous teeth Who do you riot for?
Tamir? Sandra? Medgar? George? Breonna? Elijah? Philando? Eric? Which
One? Like it can’t be all of them. Like it can’t be the entirety of it:
Destroyed brown bodies, dismantled homes, so demolition stands
Even as my fidelity falls, as it must. She erases my reason too, allows one
Answer to her only loyalty test: yes or no, Michael, do you love this nation?
Then hates me for saying I can’t, for not burying myself under
Her fables where we’re one, indivisible, free, just, under God, her God.

^{An original poem written for the inaugural reading of Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith at the Library of Congress.}

There’s a poem in this place—

in the footfalls in the halls

in the quiet beat of the seats.

It is here, at the curtain of day,

where America writes a lyric

you must whisper to say.

There’s a poem in this place—

in the heavy grace,

the lined face of this noble building,

collections burned and reborn twice.

There’s a poem in Boston’s Copley Square

where protest chants

tear through the air

like sheets of rain,

where love of the many

swallows hatred of the few.

There’s a poem in Charlottesville

where tiki torches string a ring of flame

tight round the wrist of night

where men so white they gleam blue—

seem like statues

where men heap that long wax burning

ever higher

where Heather Heyer

blooms forever in a meadow of resistance.

There’s a poem in the great sleeping giant

of Lake Michigan, defiantly raising

its big blue head to Milwaukee and Chicago—

a poem begun long ago, blazed into frozen soil,

strutting upward and aglow.

There’s a poem in Florida, in East Texas

where streets swell into a nexus

of rivers, cows afloat like mottled buoys in the brown,

where courage is now so common

that 23-year-old Jesus Contreras rescues people from floodwaters.

There’s a poem in Los Angeles

yawning wide as the Pacific tide

where a single mother swelters

in a windowless classroom, teaching

black and brown students in Watts

to spell out their thoughts

so her daughter might write

this poem for you.             

There's a lyric in California

where thousands of students march for blocks,

undocumented and unafraid;

where my friend Rosa finds the power to blossom

in deadlock, her spirit the bedrock of her community.

She knows hope is like a stubborn

ship gripping a dock,

a truth: that you can’t stop a dreamer

or knock down a dream.

How could this not be her city

su nación

our country

our America,

our American lyric to write—

a poem by the people, the poor,

the Protestant, the Muslim, the Jew,

the native, the immigrant,

the black, the brown, the blind, the brave,

the undocumented and undeterred,

the woman, the man, the nonbinary,

the white, the trans,

the ally to all of the above

and more?

Tyrants fear the poet.

Now that we know it

we can’t blow it.

We owe it

to show it

not slow it

although it

hurts to sew it

when the world

skirts below it.       

Hope—

we must bestow it

like a wick in the poet

so it can grow, lit,

bringing with it

stories to rewrite—

the story of a Texas city depleted but not defeated

a history written that need not be repeated

a nation composed but not yet completed.

There’s a poem in this place—

a poem in America

a poet in every American

who rewrites this nation, who tells

a story worthy of being told on this minnow of an earth

to breathe hope into a palimpsest of time—

a poet in every American

who sees that our poem penned

doesn’t mean our poem’s end.

There’s a place where this poem dwells—

it is here, it is now, in the yellow song of dawn’s bell

where we write an American lyric

we are just beginning to tell.