“Stop. Go put your shoes back on. They’ll know we Okies,” a Lost Image Reclamation

Anthony Cody is the author of The Rendering (Omnidawn, 2023) and Borderland Apocrypha (Omnidawn, 2020), winner of the 2018 Omnidawn Open Book Contest selected by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and the 2021 American Book Award.

Occasions

hispanic heritage month

Themes

About This Poem

“Even as I read this poem, I cannot recall if this photograph ever happened. Yet, I know this specific moment existed. I have spent years digging in public and private archives looking for what has been forgotten; however, sometimes it is the proximity of the interior archive that asks to be laid bare. I can hear my grandma’s voice and smell my grandpa, both long departed. In writing this poem, I realize that both sets of my grandparents, from Mexico and Oklahoma, spent considerable time navigating class and whiteness to survive. I am tired of navigating. This poem is that photograph.”
—Anthony Cody

More by Anthony Cody

Artifacts on a Hanging Tree, Goliad, Texas (a series of 70 Mexican Lynchings, 1857)

^{“Site for court sessions at various times from 1846 to 1870. Capital sentences called for by the courts were carried out immediately, by means of a rope and a convenient limb. Hangings not called for by regular coursts occurred here during the 1857 “cart war”—a series of attacks made by Texas freighters against Mexican drivers along the Indianola-Goliad/San Antonion Road.

About 70 men were killed, some of them on this tree, before the war was halted by Texas Rangers.”

—State Historical Survey Committee Texas Marker near the tree}

Last 5 TripAdvisor Reviews of Goliad’s Hanging Tree, as of 6/23/18
Title: Love old court houses (6/20/18)
Review: This hanging tree was just a bonus on the court house square and the history that took place there was moving.

Title: Spooky when you think of the tree’s use! (6/18/18)
Review: One of the sites in Goliad is the hanging tree a beautiful tree which was used to mete out “justice” after trials.

Title: Beauty of a tree (6/19/18)
Review: Well the name sort of says it all, but that is a beautiful tree. The courthouse is a class Texas courthouse, so the day was great.

Title: Interesting in a gruesome kind of way (5/27/18)
Review: This is a huge oak tree outside of the courthouse in Goliad. You really can picture the sentences being carried out.

Title: Huge old live oak tree (5/7/18)
Review: The tree is located in the center of town on the grounds of the county courthouse. The tree has quiet the history.
When convicted, the prisoner was walked outside and hanged from this magnificent live oak tree.

TalkToTheOakTree:AskTheCityTo TearYouDown.CityFortifiesWithStone.AskTownToGoIntoHiding.StateErectsMetalPlaque.AskTouriststoLeave.AndTheyTestYourStrengthToHoldTheirWeight.AskThemIfTheyNoticeYourShadow'sShapeIsAMassBurialOfTwitchingLegs.LetThemMemory.

El árbol, No. 10, as a series of narrowing translations:
El que a buen árbol se arrima, buena sombra le cobija. |...| He who nears a good tree, is blanketed by good shade. |...| The one that comes to a good tree, good shadow blankets them. |...| To near the tree, receive a blanket of shadow. |...| To near the tree is to blanket yourself in darkness.

Anthony Cody

2020

brd

stdnt sks
hw s th flyng thng splld?

tchr sys
ll th sft lttrs hv blwn ff
spll brd
lk brd

tchr tlls stry
frst mnfst dstny
th bffl wr hntd nd skltns stckd
th ntv ppl wr pshd n slghtrd

tk wht th y cn s

thn crps plntd nd plntd nd plntd nd plntd
thn dry nd ht nd dry nd cld nd dry nd ht
thn rbbts nd rbbts nd rbbts
thn mn clbbd ll th rbbts
pld nd lghd
vrythng brnd
ll th ppl thrstd nd th lnd crckd
brd jst lft bfr snrs nd snst
brd dsspprd
thn nsts mpty

stdnt sks
wht hppnd t brd?

tchr sys
brd sys n brnchs t prch nd crps cllps nd hrvsts nd n wrms s hngry

brd sys spk sky     spk
drk spk
ll thngs trnd psdwn

thn blw wy

nd trnds nd hrrcns nd wrs nd dss
nd nthng lvng

stdnt sks
dd brd knw?

tchr nswrs
brd knw trd t spk
thrt splt

brd ndd wtr

stdnt sys
whts wtr?

Anthony Cody

2020

El Arpa, a Mexican Lynching, No. 53

^{“The office of sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement. We must never erode this historic office.”

-Jeff Sessions, former U.S. Attorney General, February 12, 2018 to the National Sheriffs’ Association}

1. The inheritance of the heir is never a dandelion disbursal. Scattershot. Floating beyond fences. Growing elsewhere.

2. The inheritance of the elsewhere is a cave of collapse.

3. The cave of collapse is work.

4. The work is never inheritance of the heir’s or of the heir’s heir, as well as the heir’s heir’s heir.

5. The inheritance of repetition is a soundless gavel buried in a shallow grave.

6. The shallow grave is the redness of the bouquet a florist selects.

7. The bouquet is a leaning into the quiet of a funeral.

8. The quiet of a funeral is the Americas.

9. The Americas is a platform, built by the settlers, sheriffs, and miners, for the lynching of the other.

10. The lynching is in a vigilance committee of NAFTA, Operation Wetback, Maquiladoras, ICE, silences, the
agricultural prison industrial complex, congressmen, and US presidents.

11. The silences is a gerrymandering of census data.

12. The census data is learning about the word incarceration through the storytelling project playing on public radio.

13. The incarceration is an ombligo of shirts in a forest of screams.

14. The ombligo is feeding again and never hungry.

15. The feeding is a church of excommunications inside a cage of teeth.

16. The cage of teeth is elected into office.

17. The elected are voting to eliminate whatever and everything.

18. The voting are no longer asking permission.

19. The permission is trafficking.

20. The trafficking is now asked to self-report.

21. The self-report is now asked to fill out a binary form in ink, online.

22. The binary is seeking a fourth option during the election.

23. The election is a wall.

24. The wall is a type of silence.

25. The silence is a type of America.

26. The type of America is in the arrest.

27. The arrest is defined as the cessation or stoppage of motion.

28. The cessation or stoppage of motion is the fabric veiling the artifice.

29. The fabric veiling the artifice is a factory of harps.

30. The factory of harps is a maker of a stringless harp.

31. The stringless harp is the mute progeny.

32. The mute progeny is now the inheritance of the heir.

Anthony Cody

2020

Related Poems

For Henry’s Bar

I’m on an errand to find my grandpa. I’m ten
and finding freedom in a sanctioned outing
on my bike through the streets of Clovis, CA.
I roll past Silver’s house and peek into the backyard
of broke drunks holding paper bags around
a barrel fire. One who just came back
from taking a leak is seasoning some carne
they bought with the tallboys across the street
at Numero Uno market. The door chimes when
I walk in and see Artemio’s white mane. His mustache
stretches from his nostrils to his sideburns
and up into his waxed pomp of hair.
My grandma says I’m not supposed to talk to him,
but he always asks how she’s doing.

I don’t see my grandpa anyplace. Art says
he’s around somewhere. I go to Ruby’s
next door. I’m not allowed, but I look in.
I’m hit with a gust of cigarettes and Bud Light.
Half a dozen heads turn my direction. No dice.
I ride down Pollasky with feet out each way.
I swerve left and right, free, for once. I am this
far from the shouting distance of my grandma.
I take to the alley just for kicks and pop a wheelie
behind the appliance shop. I pull up behind Henry’s,
knowing grandpa’s in there. A few other grandpas too.

I don’t knock. I stay on my bike. I realize
I’m not ready to go home and like most men
in this town, grandpa doesn’t want to be found.
I keep riding. I go North toward what’s left
of the railroad tracks. There’s a grey cloud
moving across the sky and I imagine I’m
chasing it, I’m right behind it. I keep riding
until it’s all oleanders and stacked railroad ties.
I never thought I could go this far. I get off
the seat and stand. I glide next to a forgotten
caboose. I imagine I’m the howling train now.
My tires kick dust as they crunch over the dry dry dirt.

Joseph Rios

2021

Looking at Photos

^{translated by John Keene}

Dagmaris walking away on the beach.
Asunción, her fan, her trim do.
Gloria two days before dying.
Roberto, pointing to nothing.
Idermis behind Oscar, after Jorge.

I so far away I almost cannot make myself out.
My brother wasting a smile.
My aunt as ugly as the word itself.
Grandmother in her best days.
Grandfather with a festive tie.
My father drunk again.
My mother like a distantly spilled perfume.

Mirando Fotos

Dagmaris alejándose en la playa.
Asunción su abanico su peinado breve.
Gloria dos días antes de morir.
Roberto señalando nada.
Idermis detrás Oscar después Jorge.

Yo tan lejos que casi no me distingo.
Mi hermano gastando una sonrisa.
Mi tía fea hasta el fondo de la palabra.
Abuela en sus mejores tiempos.
Abuelo con una corbata contenta.
Mi padre embriagado otra vez.
Mi madre como un perfume derramado distante.

Jesús Cos Causse

2021

Images

translated by Edith Grossman

I’ve spent a whole afternoon looking at photographs.
I’ve accumulated so many in my life—
but there are two in particular that interest me.
Both are sepia by now, I don’t know where
they were taken, and I’m not in either of them.
The first is a classic composition
of nine people. My mother’s family.
My grandparents, two uncles, four aunts,
and a woman I don’t know or have forgotten.
The women sit on the ground,
the men stand behind them
except for my Aunt Aura, who holds onto
my grandfather with one hand and with the other
caresses my uncle’s shoulder.
Even in this photo of her when she was young—caramel skin,
dark eyes, dark hair, even more beautiful through the sepia,
and wearing a two-piece bathing suit:
the same as a bikini in the 1940s—
one could guess at her boldness.
They’re all in bathing suits and most
try their best smiles.
I don’t know who took this picture,
and studying their faces, I try to see
what they were thinking, what they hoped for from their lives.
My grandmother, despite her twelve children
(or perhaps because of them), smiles
from right to left, like a giant sunflower.
My grandfather seems to contemplate the infinite, as handsome
as a gray ox; and my Aunt Emilia in her braids
seems to sense the sadness of life.
I’m sure I wasn’t born yet.
But even if I were already an adult,
could I have helped them with what I know now
about their lives? Could I have predicted their successes,
their failures—could I have prophesied their deaths?
Their slender, healthy bodies.
the men with the look of swordsmen—
I feel nostalgia when I look at this photograph.
So much energy in their stance!
When did they stop boxing with life?
In which round did they concede defeat?
When did the sound of the bell make them sense the immutable?
There’s no way to take them out of the snapshot,
to know what they were thinking just then.
This is my past, these are my roots,
but as I look at it again on this rainy afternoon,
why can’t I arrange everything into a coherent scene?

Imágenes

He estado toda una tarde estudiando las fotos.
He acumulado tantas en mi vida—
pero hay dos particularmente que me interesan.
Ambas son ahora color sepia, y no sé dónde
fueron tomadas y yo no estoy en ninguna de ellas.
La primera foto es una composición clásica
de nueve personas. Esta es la familia de mi madre.
Mis abuelos, dos tíos, cuatro tías
y una mujer que desconozco o he olvidado.
Las mujeres están sentadas en el suelo,
los hombres de pies detrás de ellas
excepto por mi tía Aura, quien con una mano
agarra a mi abuelo y con la otra
acaricia el hombro de mi tío.
Ya en esta foto de juventud—piel color caramelo,
ojos y cabellos oscuros, más hermosos sobre el sepia—
(vestida con traje de baño de dos piezas:
el equivalente de un bikini en los años cuarenta)
uno podría deducir su naturaleza intrépida.
Todos están en trajes de baño y la mayoría
trata de sonreír de la mejor manera.
Yo no sé quién tomó esta foto,
y escrutando estos rostros, trato de averiguar
qué pensaban ellos, qué esperaban de sus existencias.
Mi abuela, a pesar de sus doce hijos
(o tal vez a causa de ello), sonríe
de derecha a izquierda, como un girasol gigante.
Mi abuelo parece escrutar al infinito, hermoso
como un buey gris; y mi tía Emilia, con sus trenzas,
parece intuir la tristeza de la vida.
Estoy seguro que para esa época yo no había nacido.
Pero aún si ya hubiera sido adulto,
¿podría ayudarlos con el conocimiento que ahora tengo
de sus vidas? ¿Podría haberlos prevenido de sus éxitos,
de sus fracasos—podría haber profetizado sus muertes?
De cuerpos esbeltos y sanos,
los hombres con sus figuras de esgrimistas—
siento nostalgia al mirar esta foto.
¡Cuánta energía irradia de sus poses!
¿En qué momento dejaron de boxear con la vida?
¿En qué asalto se dieron por vencidos;
en cuál campanada intuyeron lo inmutable?
No hay nada qué pueda hacer para sacarlos de esta foto,
ni para saber qué pensaban ellos en ese instante.
Éste es mi pasado, éstas mis raíces,
pero al revisarlo en esta tarde lluviosa
¿por qué no logro organizarlo en una escena coherente?

Jaime Manrique

2003

Poems

“Stop. Go put your shoes back on. They’ll know we Okies,” a Lost Image Reclamation

More by Anthony Cody

Artifacts on a Hanging Tree, Goliad, Texas (a series of 70 Mexican Lynchings, 1857)

brd

El Arpa, a Mexican Lynching, No. 53

Related Poems

For Henry’s Bar

Looking at Photos

Images

Imágenes

poets.org

academy of american poets

national poetry month

american poets

Poems

“Stop. Go put your shoes back on. They’ll know we Okies,” a Lost Image Reclamation

Imágenes

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