^{translated from the Spanish by Carina del Valle Schorske}

I’m terribly serious
and when I see another person laugh,
I’m surprised. I bear witness 
to the fresh and beautiful vision
of the pod that opens, boasting, 
to reveal its seeds.

I think I’d laugh if it weren’t for
this tremendous NO
that bars our way,
an ironwork of scolding fingers.
If I really knew what the sea is
what a fish is,
and what man…

I’ve seen a ceiba
whose root looks like an elephant.
I think it was once a pachyderm
who surrendered his trunk, 
his great cargo of gelatin, to the mystery 
of something, someone.

And just like that, so much
processed energy, so much
disjointed wonder, so much 
daydreaming perpetuated.

I think I would laugh if it weren’t for
this tremendous paralyzing NO,
if I weren’t floating among such mystery,
eating the wide-eyed cow, and someday
eaten myself with all those grasses,
another form of life.

Who invented the cow?        
How did the horse, beautiful creature, 
arrive between melodies?

But this kind of asking-after, 
this curiosity is the sin.
And where is the great voice
that blows, through zero’s mouth,
an endless confusion of clouds?
And what then, of the zero itself?

Versos de cada día 97

Yo soy terriblemente seria
y cuando veo que otra persona ríe,
me sorprendo.
Asisto a la visión fresca y hermosa
de contemplar la vaina
que desnuda sus granos y se jacta.

Creo que reiría si no existiera
ese tremendo NO
que nos sale al camino
repujado de índices levantados.
Si yo supiera qué realmente es el mar,
qué son los peces,
qué es el hombre…

Yo conozco una ceiba
cuya raíz semeja un elefante.
Creo que una vez ha sido un paquidermo
que ha cedido su trompa
y su gran gelatina al misterio
de algo… o de alguien.

Y así tanta energía procesada,
tanto asombro inconexo,
tanto sonambulismo perpetuado.

Creo que reiría si no existiera 
ese tremendo NO que paraliza, 
que no flotara yo entre el misterio
comiéndome la vaca de ojos anchos
y comido yo así por tanto germen;
otra forma de vida.

¿Quién inventó la vaca?
¿Cómo arribó entre músicas
ese hermoso animal que es el caballo?

Pero esto que pretendo,
esa curiosidad es el pecado.
¿Y dónde está esa voz grande 
que grita
por la boca del cero
la infinita contienda de la niebla?
¿Y entonces: qué es el cero?
 

^{translated from the Western Armenian by the author}

^{for Dr. Haroutune Armenian}

Estranged from my tongue 
Words dissolve to drops 
Until meaning remains fluid 
Until my self becomes  
              M  i  r  r  o  r 
Without reflection 
Without light 
Only shadow remains 
Only the search 
Toward nation 
Toward land 
Toward being 
Toward …

My tongue is a foreign traveler  
Living in my mouth 
Without invitation 
An unfamiliar kindred.

My tongue is an ocean 
Home to a sailboat  
Filled with exiles 
Who, one-by-one, create 
Sounds, sayings, 
Sentences,  
Poems,  
Until the sail rips.

My tongue  
Is a memory of the past 
A promise to the present  
A path toward the future. 

Լեզու

Օտարացած եմ լեզուէս 
Բառերըս կաթիլներու կը քայքայուին 
Մինչեվ իմաստը կը մնայ հեղուկ 
Մինչեվ անձնավորութիւնս կը դարնայ 
               Հ  ա  յ  ե  լ  ի 
Արանց արտացոլում 
Արանց լույս 
Միայն շուք կը մնա 
Միայն փնտռտուքը 
Դեպի ազգ 
Դեպի հող 
Դեպի էութիւն 
Դեպի ...

Լեզուս օտար ճամբորդ է 
Բերանիս մեչ ապրող 
Արանց հրավերի 
Անծանոդ խնամի մը:

Լեզուս ովկիանոս է 
Ուր կա առագաստանաւ մը 
Լեցուն աքսորականներով 
Որոնք մեկ-մեկ կը ստեղծեն 
Ցայներ, խօսքեր, 
Նախադասութիւններ, 
Բանաստեղծութիւններ 
Մինչեվ առագաստը կը պատռի:

Լեզուս 
Հիշատակ է անցեալին 
Խոստում է ներկային 
Ճանապարհ է դեպի ապագայ:

Here I am sorting old documents after breakfast.  
And here you are—bright as a bee sting!— 
clinging to my daughter’s souvenir birth certificate 
three decades old. How bold you seem, Dead 
Name, anchoring dates. How bold, corroborating  
vitals: 21 inches, 8 pounds 3 ounces, male, etc.  
How bold, floating above her tiny footprints. 

Of course, I love my daughter and her new  
name. But I still have a reluctant soft spot  
for you, splashed with myth as you are, citizen 
of the sea, the green of Wales poking through. 
Now you are cypher and palimpsest, collateral  
damage, slippage of signifier and signified.  
Syllables we’ve scrubbed from our vocabulary.

To show solidarity with her, maybe I should  
bury the birth certificate, along with her old  
report cards, along with you, out back.  
Dead Name, I swear it’s nothing personal.  
Dead Name, we selected you from a cast  
of 1000s. Dead Name, truth is I rarely think  
of you till one of your accidental appearances. 

Like today. Or like last fall, first day of class.  
I found myself reading you, Dead Name,  
from a list of hopefuls wanting to add. I paused.  
Almost couldn’t say you, like I was dropping  
F-bombs to welcome the class. Said you  
anyway. Your wild syllables waiting to home  
to whoever raised their hand and said I’m here.

In any moment
on any given day,
I can measure
my wellness
by this question:

Is my attention on loving,
or is my attention on
who isn’t loving me?

All of my pain is a spider 
I’ve learned not to crush 
with the heel of my shoe 

but to guide with a page 
of my journal 
into an empty glass. 

I ask questions about 
its life, its purpose 
as I walk careful 

out to the garden and rest 
it down on the earth. 
My pain—how happy 

it is to leave me 
whenever I treat it 
kind. 

I wasn’t, by any means, a natural.
Was not one of those wow-hounds
born jaw-dropped. I was tough in the husk.
Went years untouched by rain. Took shelter
seriously, even and often especially
in good weather, my tears like teenagers
hiding under the hoods of my eyes,
so committed they were to never falling
for the joke of astonishment.

When I was told there were seven
wonders of the world, I trusted the math,
believed I had seen none of them.
Of course beauty hunted me.
It hunts everyone. But I outran it, hid
in worry, regret, the promise of an afterlife
or a week’s end.

Then one day, in a red velvet theater
in New Orleans, I watched Maya Angelou
walk on stage. Seventeen slow steps to the mic.
She took a breath before speaking,
and I could hear god being born in that breath.
My every pore reached out like a hand
pointing to the first unsinkable lotus
in the bayou of the universe.
I’d never felt anything like it.
Searched the encyclopedia
for the feeling’s name when I got home:

                        “Goosebumps.”

Afterwards, I thought—I can do this.
Started training morning to night,
tore the caution tape off my life
and let everything touch it.

Allen Iverson on the television
in his first season with the Sixers,
crossover sharp as a V of sparrows
Flying through the paint like Michelangelo’s brush:
272 goosebumps.

My baby sister, sober for the first time
in thirteen years, calling to tell me
she just noticed our mother’s eyes are green:
505 goosebumps.

One day, my friend scored tickets
to a Prince concert. Tiny venue.
I was right behind the sound booth.
Prince’s entire band that evening—women.
At the end of the show the person
turned around and whispered,  He didn’t play
one song on his setlist the whole night.

I live on stages. I know what it is
to scratch a plan, but not the whole trip
and still arrive to your destination
two hundred years before your time:
421 (artist formerly known as) goosebumps.

But that’s just the fancy stuff.
Some of them came from simple facts—
It rains diamonds on Jupiter.
Blood donors in Sweden receive a thank you
message when their blood is used.

One night in Michigan, my friend,
still undiagnosed, could not uncurl
her fingers to strum her guitar,
so she sang the chords instead.
It was the first time in my life I’d seen pain
become an instrument:
10 dozen goosebumps
for each and every note plucked up from
the string section of her refusal to silence
her dream.

After that, nothing in the world was gray.
Even the movie of my past was released
in color. The oldest man in my hometown
could not get to the door to listen
to our carols so we went inside and sang
at his bedside instead. Twenty-four boots
on the front step catching snowflakes
with their tongues: 776 goosebumps.

At one point everything started doing it:
A sincere apology, an enemy’s love poem.
The moon rising over the continental divide.
My love and I thought it was a car
driving off a cliff, and suddenly
nothing in the world was dying.
You ever felt that? A split second
when nothing in the world is dying?
888 goosebumps, and the next day
I sharpened a tiny ax
so I could split the seconds myself.
Too much lives in a moment
to not feed it to the fire in the heart, slow.

A Missoula treehouse filled with candlelight.
The octopus documentary.
The biggest dog in the shelter
hiding behind a teacup chihuahua,
and the woman who came to adopt a cat
taking all three of them home.

Me, at home, two months into chemotherapy
watching all of my eyelashes fall onto my cheekbones
and realizing that was 400 wishes
I wouldn’t have made otherwise.

There is no escaping
the magic now. Beauty caught me
and never let me go.
And the thing about the world record
is—if someone breaks it after me,
and they will break it after me,
I will love that so much
that without even trying,
I’ll break it again.

You are not fifteen, or twelve, or seventeen—
You are a hundred wild centuries

And fifteen, bringing with you
In every breath and in every step

Everyone who has come before you,
All the yous that you have been,

The mothers of your mother,
The fathers of your father.

If someone in your family tree was trouble,
A hundred were not:

The bad do not win—not finally,
No matter how loud they are.

We simply would not be here
If that were so.

You are made, fundamentally, from the good.
With this knowledge, you never march alone.

You are the breaking news of the century.
You are the good who has come forward

Through it all, even if so many days
Feel otherwise.  But think:

When you as a child learned to speak,
It’s not that you didn’t know words—

It’s that, from the centuries, you knew so many,
And it’s hard to choose the words that will be your own.

From those centuries we human beings bring with us
The simple solutions and songs,

The river bridges and star charts and song harmonies
All in service to a simple idea:

That we can make a house called tomorrow.
What we bring, finally, into the new day, every day,

Is ourselves.  And that’s all we need
To start.  That’s everything we require to keep going. 

Look back only for as long as you must,
Then go forward into the history you will make.

Be good, then better.  Write books.  Cure disease.
Make us proud.  Make yourself proud.

And those who came before you?  When you hear thunder,
Hear it as their applause.

When I say But mother, Black or not Black,
Of course we are polyethnic, your look does not change
Though it does harden, a drying clay bust
Abandoned or deliberately incomplete,
All the features carved in
Except the eyes. What I’m trying—
I mean—You are an Arab, yes,
By culture, by language, and in part by blood; by blood
You are also Black African—and when, then, I say
And probably a fair amount of European, too—the lights,
Though we’re standing at the corner of 195th and Jerome,

Turn up somehow

Tracing an outline of you onto the armory’s sharp red brick, the El
Barreling up from the tunnel like a surge of magma reaching
For air and as I wait for it to pass so that you can
Hear me again, so that I can hear myself at last
Say, But here, for me … Don’t you see—?
Your face hangs on the fair of fair amount—heavy drops
Of oil, or old rain, falling onto us from the tracks—almost willing away
The layer of long-dead men flattened onto it, and the desperate
Rest of you, until I say with my looking
Through the unbearable human noise, My sweet selfless mother, it is
Fine, it is fine. For us here now I will be the first of our line.

A second death in as many days and I succeed at being
Strong and contained, until the tweet
Where one young brother says I’m not scared of dying,
I’m scared of breaking my mother’s heart. I am flesh
Two rooms down the hall from my mother’s flesh
Holding in my hands the news which is not new and today, at last, I understand
How primal and intelligent her need
To be done with this—
Our sorrow, our joy, anything at all thought ours—
To be done with the almost unavoidable assertion
Of a self she refused
To let her body take on—and to be done
Permanently, by making
A useful choice, through a man made useful by her choosing,
A man of Irish-Scandinavian stock (the only criteria,
I have wondered, in angrier moments), so that
Her boys, my brothers and I, or at least our bodies
Emerged from hers looking Spanish, maybe Greek or Italian.
Three boys, each passing
Closer to her one True North.
When she tells me not to put forward that I am Black, she is saying I love you.
She is saying I want you to live. I see now. When she told my brother she wished
He’d just find a nice blonde girl and settle down, I took her by the face
And, staring into her even-keeled nonchalance,
Told her I love you and you are crazy. Today
I see: I am flesh, I am free
To inhabit my life: to stand, to sit, to breathe, to play tag
Or with a toy gun, to walk away, or to run, to put my hands up, to ask why.
Today on a walk I took to release
How it felt to be shut out—this time,
By the editor of the African diasporic journal
Who asked not me but someone who didn’t know me
Was I Black—
I cross 112th and Amsterdam and suddenly
Am 20 years-old again,
Drunk, out-of-control in pain without knowing
Why, trying to jump a taxi
Because I’d spent my money on booze, and the cop
Whose car pulled into the crosswalk to block me,
To stop me as I ran, gets out and says to me
If you don’t pay the man, I’ll arrest you.
I was underage. I jumped a taxi. I was incoherent and angry.
I did not have the money to pay the man. I was not arrested.
Turning from the news, I complain now to a friend
I don’t know why we (all of us) should want to live—
It’s all so futile and banal. It’s all so pointless, even when it’s good—
As my mother rests inside her safe and dusty room
Next to the man she crossed an ocean to find.
I have thought her wrong
To think that we would need saving. But what do I know
Of having to choose one violence over another? Asleep now
She rests inside her flesh, my father close beside her
On his back, his forearm across his eyes,
He who chose her, too,
And over his own family, he knew to tell us, having learned early
That you must cross whatever line you have to cross.

                                             sits across from me
and passes a photo of his son, pointing out
our somewhere-around-the-eyes resemblance,
 
and in this tall son with dark curled hair, I see
my own unfathered-form and so Charles Uzor
becomes my newest father and there is so much
 
catching up to do. I tried to fix my marriage
and still it collapsed, I tell him, my whole family
has a new frame. Charles Uzor’s face listens
 
dignified by his spectacles and the sunlit window.
There is a marble table between us. On the back of his seat
rests his walking stick and with all his serious years
 
he cracks a joke, pulls a grin and lets in
some silence, telling me that he too knows divorce,
and yes, people assume it’s always the men who
 
walk away. Some people will leave you
says Charles Uzor, and some people will stay
in a different shape. His voice moves me
 
and my neatly-in-the-ground father
loosening the knot in my neck
and for at least as long as I sit facing
 
Charles Uzor’s magnet-black elegance, I am given
rest from the present pain, still tender
in my chest, and I receive a stretch of light
 
which begins and smoothly runs across
Charles Uzor’s ear and chiselled chin and towards
my own face, somewhere around my eyes.

Somewhere in Kansas
a night train torches
through the dark stomach
of the prairie.

The man in the truck
on the rural route
turns his head
for just a moment
and wonders if
he has ever made
his father proud.

But only a moment.
Now he turns from
the disembodied flames.

At the crossroad
he signals left.
The engine hums
the ballad of whatever
comes after.