And here is all we’ll need: a card deck, quartets of sun people
Of the sort found in black college dormitories, some vintage
Music, indiscriminate spirits, fried chicken, some paper,

A writing utensil, and a bottomless Saturday. We should explore
The origins of a derogatory word like spade as well as the word
For feeling alone in polite company. And also the implications
Of calling someone who is not your brother or sister,

Brother or Sister. So little is known of our past, we can imagine
Damn near anything. When I say maybe slaves held Spades
Tournaments on the anti-cruise ships bound for the Colonies,
You say when our ancestors were cooped on those ships

They were not yet slaves. Our groundbreaking film should begin
With a low-lit den in the Deep South and the deep fried voice
Of somebody’s grandmother holding smoke in her mouth
As she says, “The two of Diamonds trumps the two of Spades

In my house.” And at some point someone should tell the story
Where Jesus and the devil are Spades partners traveling
The juke joints of the 1930s. We could interview my uncle Junior
And definitely your skinny cousin Mary and any black man

Sitting at a card table wearing shades. Who do you suppose
Would win if Booker T and MLK were matched against Du Bois
And Malcolm X in a game of Spades? You say don’t talk
Across the table. Pay attention to the suits being played.

The object of the game is to communicate invisibly
With your teammate. I should concentrate. Do you suppose
We are here because we are lonely in some acute diasporafied
Way? This should be explored in our film about Spades.

Because it is one of the ways I am still learning what it is
To be black, tonight I am ready to master Spades. Four players
Bid a number of books. Each team adds the bids
Of the two partners, and the total is the number of books

That team must try to win. Is that not right? This is a game
That tests the boundary between mathematics and magic,
If you ask me. A bid must be intuitive like the itchiness
Of the your upper lip before you sip strange whiskey.

My mother did not drink, which is how I knew something
Was wrong with her, but she held a dry spot at the table
When couples came to play. It’s a scene from my history,
But this probably should not be mentioned in our documentary

About Spades. Renege is akin to the word for the shame
You feel watching someone else’s humiliation. Slapping
A card down must be as dramatic as hitting the face of a drum
With your palm, not hitting the face of a drum with a drumstick.

You say there may be the sort of outrage induced
By liquor, trash talk, and poor strategy, but it will fade
The way a watermark left on a table by a cold glass fades.
I suspect winning this sort of game makes you feel godly.

I’m good and ready for who ever we’re playing
Against tonight. I am trying to imagine our enemy.
I know you are not my enemy. You say there are no enemies
In Spades. Spades is a game our enemies do not play.

Mess like this sullies everything:

            my grandmother will call and say Who’s that white lady
            on your answering machine?

She will laugh and I will wonder what’s missing?

            (What did I forget? What does it mean
            to lose your mother? Am I brilliant yet?)

Pretty-mouthed girl with perfect diction.

            How my teachers praised me. Didn’t they love
            my lost convention, were they equipped to raise me?

If you lose your mother, tongue,

            are you a new beginning? Will the
            breaking be for love or will you hate

whatever’s ending? Going back might kill you,

            progress is a blacklist. Your voice:
            an afterlife, shadow, fist.

^{New Year on my mountain}

mama says: long noodles, long life,
so I slurp them loud, drink gingery
broth—polka-dot beads of sweat
forming as my nose hovers over
the soup’s steam. circles for luck.

circles on my dress. papa says:
make a lot of noise! so the children
bang on pots & pans to hush
yesterday’s demons. later, in the cold,

the family plods up the hill to wonder
at the fireworks, sky like a warzone lit
with spraying flames from Roman Candles—
fire on the ground from Watusi whips snaking
& coiling, sizzling our feet.

I feel it all in my chest—
a drumming,
a warning, a spell.

back in the yard, granny doles out rice
& meat, pineapple liquor, glass bottles
of Sprite. but I am snoring by midnight,
my sisters & I still swathed in red chiffon.

by morning, I cry because I missed it.
I cry because they say I’m not alone.
I cry because home is a warning,
its pulse a whiff of flint in the dark.

Which windowpane are you beating your wings against today?
I am not as stubborn as you: I am flying straight into that delicious fire.

Buckets of bubbling tar and champagne await us at the Blue Chalet.
Do you skip like this because you have been invited into our hopping choir?

I am not as stubborn as you: I am flying straight into that delicious fire.
I thought you were going to the theater in your new cabriolet.

Do you skip like this because you have been invited into our hopping choir?
Yes, I do know the difference between a martini and a matinee.

I thought you were going to the theater in your new cabriolet.
They say that the latest strain hiding in the shadows is a yellow vampire.

Yes, I do know the difference between a martini and a matinee.
You have your subdivisions and high rises, while I have my dumpy shire.

They say that the latest strain hiding in the shadows is a yellow vampire.
Don’t worry—my ancestors are sewn up in overcoats and on full display.

You have your subdivisions and high rises, while I have my dumpy shire.
When it comes to curry and gin, I say: “Let’s wallow in Combray.”

Don’t worry—my ancestors are sewn up in overcoats and on full display.
Which windowpane are you beating your wings against today?

When it comes to curry and gin, I say: “Let’s wallow in Combray”
Buckets of bubbling tar and champagne await us at the Blue Chalet.

She paddles and streams 
her kayak up Kobuck River.
At daybreak, 
she passes the salt flats into  
the glass water; she skims 
for cod and chum,          hand over oar,
            hand over oar, 
ripples tightening the drawstring
on her parka. A taffeta of cold air
hits her cheeks; they are sun-
wind chapped, a sign of Inupiaq women
subsisting for their young families.
In body, in Inuit, she thrives on the bleakest
ecstatic love. Here on her knees,
in her seal skin buoyant boat,
her duties of her village complete,
she knows her place among the caribou 
women. She knows her children 
with their earphones on, 
while playing video games, 
will not follow her in the knowledge of ice, 
dressing a caribou, preparing dry-fish, 
jarring jellies, dip netting hooligans, 
purse netting whitefish, tracking 
and setting traps for marmot, squirrels,
arctic fox and wolverines. She thinks 
of the children, hand over oar; 
they will stay at the village, carve 
for cleaving water with Inupiat hands.

She asks me to write a list
of all the names I’ve been called.
And then a list of things
that are killing me.
Where to start? Susie. Sue.
Big Head. Men have called me cold.
Men I know, men I don’t.
It’s all over the news
how they want to kill me.
It doesn’t matter what they
call me. When I was 17, I kneeled
on the stained carpet at Men’s Wearhouse,
looping a tape measure around
a small boy’s waist and he showed me
my name. He pulled his eyes slant
as I measured the distance
between belly button and floor: inseam
or outseam, it’s hard to keep track.
A wedding, his father said.
There was going to be a wedding.
The boy needed a tux.
I don’t like this memory
because I did nothing.
In remembering,
I become nothing again.
Not long after in college,
I was sorting clothes in the back
of a Goodwill. Court-ordered community
service. An older man took
his time looking me up
and down as I sweat through my shirt,
threw pit-stained blouses
into the discard pile,
everything else the salvaging bin.
I went home with him for years,
not knowing about the prior assaults.
Would my knowing have changed
anything? He was gentle
to my face. I only ignored
his texts sometimes.
Men have destroyed me
for less. Even the boy.
I’m supposed to tell you
I forgive him—
he was just a boy.
I forgive myself instead.