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never thought I
would see it here
in this Otherwhere,
no plantation in sight
no patterned pods
for the picking,
nor calloused hands
to plow & gin
an untouched December
bluff surrounded by scrubs of green
blowing along
a dust-whipped road heading south
toward no one’s harvest.
Copyright © 2023 by Fred L. Joiner. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 19, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
on listening to "Yama"
She asked me what the song
did for me
“Be specific” she said
I tell her Lee Morgan
wrote this song
for someone he loved
& let get away
I.
I am losing weight, my mouth
is shrinking, my stomach is now
right-sized for my eyes
I have seen where everything goes
to die, things the earth cannot swallow
cannot return to dust
litter is landscape
& only unusable burns
after the harmattan has emptied his last
gasp & wheeze, & we have shaken loose his dust
from our bodies & found shelter
from the Sahel’s certain heat,
when the water returns & the river is high,
this bit of sun bittered earth becomes a stage, a show