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Coherence in Consequence

Claudia Rankine

Imagine them in black, the morning heat losing within this day that floats. And always there is the being, and the not-seeing on their way to—

The days they approach and their sharpest aches will wrap experience until knowledge is translucent, the frost on which they find themselves slipping. Never mind the loose mindless grip of their forms reflected in the eye-watering hues of the surface, these two will survive in their capacity to meet, to hold the other beneath the plummeting, in the depths below each step full of avoidance. What they create will be held up, will resume: the appetite is bigger than joy. indestructible. for never was it independent from who they are. who will be.

Were we ever to arrive at knowing the other as the same pulsing compassion would break the most orthodox heart.

Excerpt from Plot, copyright © 2001 by Claudia Rankine. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited.

Claudia Rankine — Photo credit: Andrew Zuckerman/The Slowdown

Born in Jamaica in 1963, Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press, 2014), which received the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. She served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2013 to 2018.

About Claudia Rankine

Themes

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More by this poet

sound and fury

The gloom is

the off-white of white. Because white can’t know

what white knows. Where’s the life in that?

Where’s the right in that? Where’s the white in that?

At the bone of bone white breathes the fear of being,

the frustration of seeming unequal to white.

White portraits on white walls signal ownership of all,

even as white walls white in.

And this is understandable, yes,

understandable because the culture claims white

Claudia Rankine

2020

From “Citizen,” V [Sometimes “I” is supposed to hold what is not there]

Sometimes “I” is supposed to hold what is not there until it is.
Then what comes apart the closer you are to it.

This makes the first person a symbol for something.

The pronoun barely holding the person together.

Someone claimed we should use our skin as wallpaper knowing we couldn’t win.

You said “I” has so much power; it’s insane.

And you would look past me, all gloved up, in a big coat, with fancy fur around the collar, and record a self saying, you should be scared, the first person can’t pull you together.

Claudia Rankine

2016

“Don’t Let Me Be Lonely” [Mahalia Jackson is a genius.]

Mahalia Jackson is a genius. Or Mahalia Jackson has genius. The man I am with is trying to make a distinction. I am uncomfortable with his need to make this distinction because his inquiry begins to approach subtle shades of racism, classism, or sexism. It is hard to know which. Mahalia Jackson never finished the eighth grade, or Mahalia’s genius is based on the collision of her voice with her spirituality. True spirituality is its own force. I am not sure how to respond to all this. I change the subject instead.

Claudia Rankine

2016