Make/Do
(Being an Occasional Poem for All Q&As Henceforth)For Jamal Cyrus and Tomás Morin, and all kith who make do to make work
“Do you also make work that isn’t political?”
I mean, do we make work
about where and when we were
raised: the three-whistle corner store
the empty coke bottle trill
the nickname that doesn’t nick us
as we blow through customs
with a toothpick smile
and hell-no eyes, sweet fools
greasing the bike chains
for this day, always saying
someone better fix this street
light? Do we flicker at night
when the kids are sleeping
dim, bright, dim, bright, do we?
Do we, at times, make work
about who breaks the news
to us at breakfast and how the syrup
she’s holding is now trembling, how
she’s beating, beating, beating
what no one can now eat, the mouth
fumbling for what no one
can now say? Do we make it
work with mirrors held
to the bottom of lakes, with combs
pulled through palms, with thumbs
flipping the bills, with two bags
and three names
at the border?
I mean, do we make work
about the road that crackles
with sirens or about Dad’s hydrangeas
which came up again that summer
violet clouds of bruises and pinker
than the Hubba Bubba we were popping
so loud, no one could stand us
but we grinned and grinned because
any air left in us meant
we could still answer
years later
a question like this?
Copyright © 2024 by Divya Victor. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 3, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
“In June 2023, I was a writer in residence at Civitella Ranieri in Italy, along with many poets, musicians, and artists. The poet Tomás Morin and the artist Jamal Cyrus gave presentations from their work one evening. After Jamal’s presentation, a member of the audience, a white man, asked him ‘Do you make work that isn’t political?’ This question sent a shudder through the fellows—many of us who were folks of color, queer, immigrants, or the children of immigrants. So ‘Make/Do’ is an occasional poem written in response to that question, and is a documentation of the shudder we felt as a group, the shudder that brought us together. I composed this poem on my phone while sitting on a hotel bed in Rome, a block away from the Vatican. I sent it immediately to DJ Rekha, a Civitella Fellow as well, for their blessing. And to Tomás and Jamal as a belated offering of what I wish I had said when that question first erupted into our midst. I am grateful that Cyrus asked for this poem for the series. In doing so, I feel he expanded what fellowship can mean for us poets.”
—Divya Victor
Divya Victor
Divya Victor is the author of Curb (Nightboat Books, 2021), winner of the 2022 PEN/Open Book Award and the winner of the 2022 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. The collection was also a finalist for the 2022 CLMP Firecracker Award for Poetry. She is also the author of Kith (Fence Books/ Book*hug, 2017); Natural Subjects (Trembling Pillow Press, 2014); Unsub (Insert Blanc Press, 2014); and Things To Do With Your Mouth (Les Figues Press, 2014). Victor’s work has been translated into Czech, French, German, and Spanish.