In the dark
Down a stairwell
Through the doorway
Gone west
With a new wish
In daylight
Down the sidewalk
In a wool coat
In a white dress
Without a name
Without asking
On your knees
On your stomach
Gone silent
In the backseat
In the courtroom
In a cage
In the desert
In the park
Gone swimming
On the shortest night
At the bottom of the lake
In pieces
In pictures
Without meaning
Without a face
Seeking refuge
In a new land
Gone still
In the heart
With your head bowed
In deference
In sickness
In surrender
With your hands up
On the sidewalk
In the daylight
In the dark
Copyright © 2021 by Camille Rankine. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 2, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
What have I
To say in my wrong tongue
Of what is gone To know something is
Lost but what You have forgotten what
You long forgot If I am
What survives I am here but I am not
Much of anything at all To be what’s left
And all the rest scooped out
And dropped into the sea My flesh
Forming a knot on itself is a habit
Learned from whom A mind reaching back
Into the dark a body releasing itself
Backward into space a faith
I have no prayer in which to keep
Am I home or merely caught
Between two unmarked graves
I’m saying where we live
It’s a mistake A compromise
I’m made to make
I’m told come willingly
Halfway across a bridge to where
I’m halfway human Or else
A door bricked over
Behind which all I am
To be shadow cast by shadows cast
By no one’s hand And now
Whose fault am I It’s said
I stand against the grain
Of natural law A being in chaos
In argument with itself What would it be
To be simply I am here but what of me
That’s gone stays gone
Copyright © 2019 by Camille Rankine. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 5, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.