Self-Portrait as Hereboy, Sethe’s Dog in Beloved
Worried my love’s not worth much, but I always
come when called. Ain’t my name your favorite
command? No need to raise your hand. How
long you plan on marauding me with meak
mercies: I’m still bandaged from your last love:
dogged years I’ve knelt at your lap: tongue out,
eyes wet and for what: when it’s not your hands
on me, it’s your dead come ready to wind up
and wound.
Copyright © 2025 by Saeed Jones. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 5, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I have always been struck by the fact that, in Beloved, after being violently abused by the spirit in the house, Here Boy refuses to go back inside but he doesn’t actually leave Sethe and Denver. Instead, he chooses to sleep outside. He won’t leave them. The loyalty breaks my heart, even though I understand it.”
—Saeed Jones
Saeed Jones
Saeed Jones is the author of Prelude to Bruise (Coffee House Press, 2014), a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and winner of the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry.