^{Ezzard Charles Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio, circa 1980}

Snuffed out candlewick shadow 
disappears in the shimmer
of her snuff cans. The silver
cylinders cradle the powder
she’s prone to pucker, her lower lip
smooth with the stuff. She takes
her time. This is her time. Her mind
                                    space.
Her words pinch in slow motion.  
Tho nobody’s home. & she ain’t
studin you. She knows when to 
leave her imaginings. No tobacco-
cancer concerns this eve.
It’s all banana pudding feet
in slippers, vanilla wafer-colored
                                   waves
and wigs. She’ll leave this realm
at sixty-five, much to her children
& husband’s surprise.

I

Living is no laughing matter:
	you must live with great seriousness
		like a squirrel, for example—
   I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
		I mean living must be your whole occupation.
Living is no laughing matter:
	you must take it seriously,
	so much so and to such a degree
   that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
                                            your back to the wall,
   or else in a laboratory
	in your white coat and safety glasses,
	you can die for people—
   even for people whose faces you’ve never seen,
   even though you know living
	is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
I mean, you must take living so seriously
   that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees—
   and not for your children, either,
   but because although you fear death you don’t believe it,
   because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

II

Let’s say we’re seriously ill, need surgery—
which is to say we might not get up
			from the white table.
Even though it’s impossible not to feel sad
			about going a little too soon,
we’ll still laugh at the jokes being told,
we’ll look out the window to see if it’s raining,
or still wait anxiously
		for the latest newscast. . . 
Let’s say we’re at the front—
	for something worth fighting for, say.
There, in the first offensive, on that very day,
	we might fall on our face, dead.
We’ll know this with a curious anger,
        but we’ll still worry ourselves to death
        about the outcome of the war, which could last years.
Let’s say we’re in prison
and close to fifty,
and we have eighteen more years, say,
                        before the iron doors will open.
We’ll still live with the outside,
with its people and animals, struggle and wind—
                                I  mean with the outside beyond the walls.
I mean, however and wherever we are,
        we must live as if we will never die.

III

This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
               and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet—
	  I mean this, our great earth.
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even 
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
	  in pitch-black space . . . 
You must grieve for this right now
—you have to feel this sorrow now—
for the world must be loved this much
                               if you’re going to say “I lived”. . .

From   her   perch   on  the  docent’s  gloved  wrist,  she
watches   us with the eyes  of any creature handled  too
much:  featherless head a closed door,  body a mask of
silence.   In   the  steep   twilight  descending  like   the
backwards  count of a  nurse’s  voice leading  a patient
into  unconsciousness,   the   handler  explains  to  our
circle   the  generalities    of   the   species—the    turkey
vulture’s    primary    form     of     self-defense   is     the
regurgitation   of   semi-digested    meat    that  is   then
vomited      onto     a       predator’s        face—and     the
particularities of this one, who had come   to them with
a broken wing.  I, too,  have places on my body  knitted
back together by unseen hands,  scars laid while I slept
the   sleep  of  the  unknowing:    one  above  the    belly
button,  and  another  below where   two  fingers   must
have parted the dark hair before shaving a path.   Does
she remember  the first faces to peer toward her  as she
surfaced?  Every time  I try to write  what those   hands
did,  I end   up  plunging  my own   fingers deep   inside
until  I  pull  up the voice  of the surgeon  in post-op:   I
usually have to pay women to take their clothes off for
me.  Oh, the shudder of her black-feathered shoulders.
Oh, the bile rising in her throat

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

^{translated from the Kreyòl by Danielle Legros Georges}

In what language should I speak to you
when the words beneath our sheets
blow over my belly

life has me holding a grudge
pouring coffee on my recollections
not revealing where the moon finds its water

When children cry
and won’t stop
one after the other the words dry up
in the palm of my hand
not letting me baptize the dark

Believe me 
I don’t know what you are:
A navel that’s lost its cord in the midst of a poetry book?
A hibiscus flower with a sickly eye?
A bird with its wings pinned to its back?
I was surprised by you
I didn’t know who you were
Today your mouth’s upturned
This shout, louder than your pain

       ***

In what language should I speak to you
when prayer kneels before poverty
and our daughters fly kites 
by the cathedral
sick of washing their marbles
in the vestry

Believe me
I don’t know your name
when a ten-year-old beggar
undresses his hunger beneath the statue of Saint Anne
each grain of rice leaving a scar on our skin

       ***

The wind takes a break to make us drunk
we carry it on our backs
our way is rugged 
In what language should I speak to you
when the sun loses its way

Believe me
I don’t remember what hurts me most
I stand on tiptoe to gather stars
that capsize never to rise again
Love has lost its name 
continents don’t remain steady
one wild day, we’ll meet
without my knowing who you are

Plidetwal

Nan ki lang pou m pale avè w
Lè pawòl anba dra
Pase souf li sou vant mwen

lavi kenbe m nan kè
koule kafe nan memwa m
li pa di m kote lalin bwè dlo

Lè timoun ap kriye
san rete
youn apre lòt mo yo seche
nan pla men m
san yo pa ban m tan pou m batize fènwa

Kwè m si ou vle
mwen pa konn ki sa ou ye
Yon lonbrit ki pèdi kòd li nan mitan liv pwezi
Yon flè choublak ki gen malozye
Yon zwazo ak zèl li mare dèyè do l
Mwen pantan sou ou
san m pa t konnen kilès ou ye
Jodi a bouch ou tètanba
Rèl sa a pi gwo pase doulè w

       ***

Nan ki lang pou m pale avè w
lè lapriyè met ajenou devan lamizè
Pitit fi n ap monte kap
bò katedral
Yo bouke lave grenn mab
anndan sakristi

Kwè m si ou vle
M pa konn ki jan ou rele
lè yon ti pòv dizan
dezabiye grangou l nan pye Sentàn
chak grenn diri kite yon mak sou po n

       ***

Van an kabicha pou l fè nou sou
nou pote l sou do
chimen nou kalboso
nan ki lang pou m pale avè w
lè solèy la 
bliye wout li

Kwè m si ou vle
m pa sonje sa k fè m pi mal
m kanpe sou pwent pye pou m ranmase zetwal
yo chavire yo pa janm remonte
Lanmou pèdi papye l
kontinan pa ret anplas
yon jou sovaj na rankontre
san m pa mande ki moun ou ye