Tending

In the pull-out bed with my brother

            in my grandfather’s Riverton apartment

my knees and ankles throbbed from growing,

            pulsing so hard they kept me awake—

or was it the Metro North train cars

            flying past the apartment, rocking the walls,

or was it the sound of apartment front doors

            as heavy as prison doors clanging shut?

Was the Black Nation whispering to me

            from the Jet magazines stacked on the floor, or

was it my brother’s unfamiliar ions

            vibrating, humming in his easeful sleep?

Tomorrow, as always, Grandfather will rise

            to the Spanish-Town cock’s crow deep in his head

and perform his usual ablutions,

            and prepare the apartment for the day,

and peel fruit for us, and prepare a hot meal

            that can take us anywhere, and onward.

Did sleep elude me because I could feel

            the heft of unuttered love in his tending

our small bodies, love a silent, mammoth thing

            that overwhelmed me, that kept me awake

as my growing bones did, growing larger

            than anything else I would know?