The Best American Poetry 2015 (13 page)

to a lovely neck, later they would make

a gentle elbow in the water, later

they would pour into a still round pool,

and dance for three minutes to what they

called music. Niagara Falls is a family

member. He is drunk for the first time

in a hundred years. “I don't call that music

I call that noise,” would have screamed

Niagara Falls, right through his aquiline

family nose. All of Niagara's ex-lovers

are here. The World's Steepest Dive

stands up and says, “I've been diving

so long now, and when will I hit?

When will you be there for me, Niagara?”

First Woman Behind the Falls stands up

so everyone can see her, so everyone

can see what has happened to her looks.

“You took the best day of my life,

      Niagara.” The World's

Longest Breath-Hold stands up,

she loves him, she drew in her breath

the first time she saw him and never

breathed out again, not ever. The furious

waterfall without water he punches her

into tomorrow; the World's Longest

Breath-Hold is longer now and she calls

to him from the future, “You're here,

you're roaring again where I am,

Tomorrow.” Finally his first love the U-

Shape stands up. Stands up and she says,

“Niagara.” The sound curves down and up

again, even the shape of her voice is a U.

“I don't call that music I call that noise,”

says the furious waterfall without water,

trembling at the very lip, unable to contain

himself, and there he goes roaring

back into her arms.

from
A Public Space

Might night right sight?

—Andrew Joron

The first thing she did after we blindfolded her

and turned her in circles by her shoulders

was lunge

for where she thought her target hung

and hit tree trunk instead, with one strike

against it split the stick

in half to jagged dagger

in her

fists. The donkey gently swayed

within reach, barely grazed

and staring straight ahead with the conviction

inherent to its kind at the horizon

that a gaze

implies,

paper mane fluttering in the breeze of a near miss,

belly ballasted with melting chocolate kisses,

drawn grin belying its

thingness, rictus

of ritual and craft. She's grinning

too, and laughing, regaining

her balance,

planting her feet in a samurai stance.

She brandishes her splinter.

There's no harm in letting her

take another turn

without turning

her around again.

We think we know how this ends,

how good it feels to play at this,

violence and darkness,

the beast

that harbors something sweet.

from
The Hopkins Review

It's like ants

and more ants.

West, east

their little axes

hack and tease.

Your sins. Your back taxes.

This is your Etna,

your senate

of dread, at the axis

of reason, your taxi

to hell. You see

your past tense—

and next? a nest

of jittery ties.

You're ill at ease,

at sea

almost in-

sane. You've eaten

your saints.

You pray to your sins.

Even sex

is no exit.

Ah, you exist.

from Poem-a-Day

I. Southern Migration

Leech. Broke speech. Leaf ain't pruning pot. Lay. Lye. Lie. Hair straight off. Arrowed branch and horse joint. Elbow ash. Row fish. Row dog. Slow-milk pig. Blue-water sister. Hogs like willow. Weep crow. Weep cow. Sow bug. Soul narrow. Inchway. Inches away. Over the bridge. Back that way. Fur. Fir needles in coal. Black hole. Black out. Black feet. Blame. Long way still. Not there. There. Here. Same.

II. Feed the Saw

Old Crow. Liquor. Drink. Drunk. Girdle. Grits. Grit. Tea. Grit tea. Tea git. Get shaved. Shook. Shucked. Shit. Flour. Flower. Lard and swallow. Hardedge chew. Chipped tooth bite. Tool chip. Bite. Bloat. Bloat. Bloat. Blight seat. Blight sit tea. Be light city. Down town dim. Slight dark. Old Arc. New Arc. New Ark. New work. Newark. Lark-fed. Corned bread. Bedfeather back. Sunday-shack church fat. Greased gloved. Dust-rubbed. Love cheap-heeled shoes. Window seat. Mirror eye. Window. I. Window. Window. When though. When though. Wind blow. November. December. No cinder. No slumber. No summer. Branch. Branched. Blanched. Fried. Freed. Fly. Want. What. Want. What. Graves want.

III. Miscegenation

Good. Smooth. Curly-haired baby. Baby rock-a-bye. My baby. Mama rock-a-bye that baby. Wrestle the earth, baby. No dirt. No. Dirt-shine. Shine. Shine-neck. Porcelain. Tin. Tarnish. Powder milk. Pout her. Milk. Powder-silk inheritance. Front the washtub. Top the bed. Bin. Leaky numbers run in. Run in. Run on. Red fevers hold your palm. Sweat it out. Hot. Hot. Heat the rest. Pretty melt that wax. Wide flower. Ellis-Island daddy. O, Daddy's bar. Banned. Mongrel hum. Come. Come now. Little bones bend. Old crack. Creak. Crank. Crick. Curly-Q. Fuck. Them. Then fuck them. You hear me. Walk through good-haired baby. Half of you. Belong.

IV. Gertrude Stein

Who. Bills mount. Picasso. Who. Matisse. Who. Mortgage. No currency canvass. Pay brushes. Stroke. Stroke. Bridge. Brittle. Blend. 10 miles daybreak. 10 miles they break. They broke. No brick. Widgets in the envelope. No railroad green. Agriculture. Pea snap. Earth under nails. Spine and stilt woman. Roach-kill heel woman. Roaches in the crawl. Woman, creep. Keep 5th grade. Every where. Wear every where. We're every. Where. Any. How. We sacrifice and hammer. They sacrifice the hammer. Never. Ax and hatchet make callous. Hard hand. Prison-pen privilege. Prison. Privilege pinned. Bar-thorn pinned. Pine cross. Crown. Weight. Wait. Iron is harder. Chicken fat can is full of spark. Spark kill. Ore. Sparkle. Or. Spark cull. Spark. Cull. Hoe. Heave. Heave-holy. Heavy. Heavy. Heavy lights genius. That is that Gertrude. Who.

from
Kinfolks Quarterly

for Detroit

There are birds here,

so many birds here

is what I was trying to say

when they said those birds were metaphors

for what is trapped

between fences

and buildings. No.

The birds are here

to root around for bread

the girl's hands tear

and toss like confetti. No,

I don't mean the bread is torn like cotton,

I said confetti, and no

not the confetti

a tank can make out of a building.

I mean the confetti

a boy can't stop smiling about,

and no his smile isn't much

like a skeleton at all. And no

their neighborhood is not like a war zone.

I am trying to say

the neighborhood is as tattered

and feathered as anything else,

as shadow pierced by sun

and light parted

by shadow-dance as anything else,

but they won't stop saying

how lovely the ruins,

how ruined the lovely

children must be in your birdless city.

from
Poetry

And the boy.

Everywhere, sound. Here: sirens. There: sirens.

And the crying

[because one woman's husband

doesn't love her anymore

and wants to go to medical school,

now, after so many years of lawyering;

because another one woke up one day,

told her husband,
I don't think I ever want

to sleep with you again
, meaning sex,

and then he learned it meant not

even the sleeping, the spooned, belly loose

intimacy of howler monkey night;

because the dandelion blew

into a million parachuting seeds.]:

Pre-dandelions floating everywhere, to every continent.

There, too, screaming, just like sirens,

and everywhere in between, each anniversary of the living.

My boy is in college now
, one says,

but that day of the bombing,

when they called, I stopped at the 7–11

to buy bags to bring the body parts home in
.

He was one of only four that survived
.

[Whose baby, anonymous, in the trash heap

Whose boys aiming, aiming, falling in love

with the fear they won't ever outrun?

Whose child that one,

without an arm, a knife in the other?]