Brown Read online

  he’d say, above the overhead

  projector’s buzz—you could manage

  without me. He never

  could forget a past

  only we would remember—

  his teacher telling him at graduation

  You know you’re only seventeen

  & who knows how long this Pacific

  Theater might last—They have this new

  GI Bill. Get some college first,

  Wayne, his name all alliteration,

  a tone poem. How

  ——

  could he know

  we’d drop the bomb

  & end it all? He tried serving

  later, even went

  to enlist in Korea but was foiled

  by a bad back & luck. I tried,

  he’d plead the air. How to soothe

  a man who woke his whole life

  at five & could silence kids

  not his own? Who once

  drove 45 on the highway he told us

  cause Nixon asked

  ——

  his fellow Americans to, counting

  each unpatriotic car that passed him

  along the way? Like history he saved

  & scored the immeasurable—

  with years-worth of sick days

  hoarded & never spent, illness

  came to fetch him

  from the only other home he knew.

  Wearing black now, pointing out

  where other kids once sat long before

  we were born—future

  governors, a crook or two—

  ——

  each chair a ghost. You’re my kids,

  he’d tell us, we built or broke

  his heart. Next day

  he was gone. We never did make it

  to Vietnam—rest

  of the year in silence we took down

  the words he’d written

  projected on the wall

  like any man’s promises to himself.

  The latter half of the twentieth century

  felt a bit too cold, winter

  lingered too long—Mr. W’s words,

  ——

  unchanged, awaited

  us coloreds & women libbers

  half-hoping for him

  to return—for the world not to be

  as cruel as we’d learned.

  We spent the Sixties

  minus Malcolm X, or Watts,

  barely a March on Washington—

  all April & much

  of May we waited for Woodstock

  & answers & assassinations

  that would never come

  ——

  among the steady hum

  & faint bright

  of flickering fluorescent lights.

  Dictation

  for William O’Neil,

  FBI Informant

  Teach yourself to swim. Borrowing a car

  for a day, joyride eight leagues across

  state lines. Catch yourself the moment

  before the pigs catch you, hands white

  on the wheel. You have the right to remain

  etcetera. Officer Le Fervour from the Fraternal

  Order of Police will slap you on the wrists,

  convince you to join the Panthers. You will

  learn to remember your meals, record

  conversations, how to write backwards

  in the dark. Monitor all nefarious

  activity, the Breakfast for Children Program,

  the grits, the jelly. Relax and your body will

  float naturally. After you become Minister

  of Security, Special Agent M will contact you

  intermittently to obtain the locations of weapons

  and boxes of cereal. All milk shall be burned

  in due time. Give your brother sleeping

  pills drowned in water so he won’t hear

  our fire; after his file closes you’ll see plans

  of the headquarterslashbedrooms we drew

  from your eyes. You never even raised

  a fist. Take your two hundred bones

  for years of uniquely rendered service

  and keep treading, remembering to breathe.

  Booty Green

  From the outside he’s a killer

  & we know it.

  We’ve tried hemming Chris inside,

  below the key—

  started off playing HORSE

  then quickly switched

  to BULLSHIT soon as parents

  headed on indoors—

  come dusk, we begin

  telling lies

  about length & behind-

  the-back shots,

  about how sweet

  our selves are. We’ve given up

  the simon says of Around the World

  ——

  for Booty Green, a game

  like 21, only meaner—

  blacker, jack.

  The rules: are none.

  The rules: no fouls

  called, no traveling,

  no out-of-bounds. Just play,

  boy, all elbows & ass

  whuppins, fatal angles.

  Amri—his name

  a lion—barrels down

  the lane like a shotgun

  bride. Rejected.

  Yo mama.

  Troy hanging from the rim

  ——

  like a suicide, saving

  himself. The shortest,

  I let them fight it out

  in the paint, preying

  on rebounds—believe it

  or not—learning to toss up

  hooks along the side, their arc

  high, sly as a covenant. Mo Fo

  of the Sacred Swish, her

  holiness. And so

  it came to pass—

  but we keep it, head instead

  for the bucket

  as if an endzone, gaining air

  like the black balcony

  ——

  of the movie theater, talking

  back to the screens

  we each post. The ball

  popcorn to toss.

  Brick. Chump,

  I thot you knew.

  The Easter we’ve just eaten—

  we angel against

  each other till borne

  by air, gaining ground

  on God. Between the garage

  & someone’s mama’s

  car—Watch the paint,

  nigger—we soar

  & psych & sing.

  ——

  Here, to stuff

  don’t mean your mouth or the Resurrection

  bird now splayed

  open indoors, but grabbing the rim

  like a grenade pin. Not

  that I’d know. Fingers round

  the hoop, an eye

  jabbed soft in its socket—

  my glasses fly, a bird

  almost extinct. No apology—

  cowboying, we pick up

  & go again, pound the pavement

  to pidgin, palming the ball

 
the way Chris would grab

  smaller boys’ foreheads—

  ——

  Crystal ball, tell me all—

  his hands reading fortunes

  we pretend we’ll make.

  Out here we charge, trying

  to father ourselves—

  our dads inside, wise,

  where it’s still warm.

  We laugh at the way

  Chris, like the god he thought

  he was, took a new last name—

  Fontaine—trying to pull down

  babes on the rebound. Don’t

  know how with that

  jheri curl juice. But today, fool,

  all our heads are clean

  ——

  as dinner-table talk, as a broke dick

  dog. Our dads asleep

  in front of the game

  or divorced, having dinner

  with new families—or alone—

  while over dirty dishes

  our mothers laugh.

  Here on this angly, angry

  asphalt, no matter what

  the songs say, love or faith

  don’t make the grade—

  one manchild against the rest,

  we dog each other out

  so later we can take shots

  from the outside

  ——

  where Chris breaks free,

  prodigal, almost to the lawn—

  his jumper murder. Every sunk

  shot sends him to the line,

  the rest of us panting

  & bent & catching

  breath. If he misses

  it’s sudden death

  & we’re all hoping

  to reach 21. Last requests?

  he says bouncing

  that ball bald

  as a granny, or a baby,

  two things

  we’re trying to prove

  ——

  we’re not. No way,

  we holler. Up again

  for the rebound, savior

  that never comes—the ball falling

  like a guillotine, or the pumpkin

  the executioner tests it on,

  falling like the dark

  we barely notice has grown up

  around us—the gruff

  voice of a father

  summoning us inside

  to dine on humble pie & crow

  before it grows cold.

  Brown

  for my mother

  The scrolled brown arms

  of the church pews curve

  like a bone—their backs

  bend us upright, standing

  as the choir enters

  singing, We’ve come this far

  by faith—the steps

  & sway of maroon robes,

  hands clapping like a heart

  in its chest—leaning

  on the Lord—

  this morning’s program

  still warm

  from the mimeo machine

  quick becomes a fan.

  In the vestibule latecomers

  wait just outside

  the music—the river

  we crossed

  to get here—

  wide boulevards now

  ——

  in disrepair.

  We’re watched over

  in the antechamber

  by Rev.

  Oliver Brown,

  his small, colored picture

  nailed slanted

  to the wall—former

  pastor of St. Mark’s

  who marched

  into that principal’s office

  in Topeka to ask

  Why can’t my daughter

  school here, just

  steps from our house—

  but well knew the answer—

  & Little Linda

  became an idea, became more

  what we needed & not

  a girl no more—Free-dom

  Free-dom—

  ——

  Now meant

  sit-ins & I shall I shall

  I shall not be

  moved—

  & four little girls bombed

  into tomorrow

  in a church basement like ours

  where nursing mothers & children

  not ready to sit still

  learned to walk—Sunday school

  sent into pieces

  & our arms.

  We are

  swaying more

  now, entering

  heaven’s rolls—the second row

  behind the widows

  in their feathery hats

  & empty nests, heads heavy

  but not hearts

  Amen. The all-white

  ——

  stretchy, scratchy dresses

  of the missionaries—

  the hatless holy who pin lace

  to their hair—bowing

  down into pocketbooks

  opened for the Lord, then

  snapped shut

  like a child’s mouth

  mouthing off, which just

  one glare from an elder

  could close.

  God’s eyes must be

  like these—aimed

  at the back row

  where boys pass jokes

  & glances, where Great

  Aunts keep watch,

  their hair shiny

  as our shoes

  &, as of yesterday,

  just as new—

  ——

  chemical curls & lop-

  sided wigs—humming

  during offering

  Oh my Lord

  Oh my Lordy

  What can I do.

  The pews curve like ribs

  broken, barely healed,

  & we can feel

  ourselves breathe—

  while Mrs. Linda Brown

  Thompson, married now, hymns

  piano behind her solo—

  No finer noise

  than this—

  We sing

  along, or behind,

  mouth most

  every word—following

  her grown, glory voice,

  the black notes

  ——

  rising like we do—

  like Deacon

  Coleman whom my mother

  always called Mister—

  who’d help her

  weekends & last

  I saw him my mother

  offered him

  a slice of sweet potato

  pie as payment—

  or was it apple—

  he’d take no money

  barely said

  yes, only

  I could stay

  for a piece—

  trim as his grey

  moustache, he ate

&nb
sp; with what I can only

  call dignity—

  fork gently placed

  ——

  across his emptied plate.

  Afterwards, full,

  Mr. Coleman’s That’s nice

  meant wonder, meant

  the world entire.

  Within a year cancer

  had eaten him away—

  the only hint of it

  this bitter taste for a whole

  year in his mouth. The resurrection

  and the light.

  For now he’s still

  standing down front, waiting

  at the altar for anyone

  to accept the Lord, rise

  & he’ll meet you halfway

  & help you down

  the aisle—

  legs grown weak—

  As it was in the beginning

  Is now

  ——

  And ever shall be—

  All this tuning