E. Ethelbert Miller

Every morning I look for you on the menu. Where are your eyes and lips, my side order of thighs? I’m so hungry for the sauce of you and the way your blouse opens like a flame.

on the top shelf of the closet is the hat my father wears on special occasions it rests next to the large jar he saves pennies in his head is always bare when i see him walking in the street i once sat in his bedroom watching him search between sweaters and suits looking for something missing a tie perhaps then he stopped and slowly walked to the closet took the hat from the shelf i sat on the bed studying his back waiting for him to turn and tell me who died

inside the car françois and i could see the light coming from the cigarette michele duvalier was smoking her husband declared president for life looked like a fat chauffeur sitting beind the wheel françois and i smiled the small procession of cars slipping past us in the dark we did not know that a few miles away people were already celebrating nor could we see joy on the faces of the men who ran holding knives and sticks to the place where papa doc was buried tonight even ghosts will die as françois and i walk barefoot at the center of port-au-prince

death surrounds itself with the living i watch them take the body from the house i’m a young kid maybe five years old the whole thing makes no sense to me i hear my father say lord jesus what she go and do this for i watch him walk out the backdoor of the house i watch him walk around the garden kick the dirt stare at the flowers & shake his head  shake his head he shakes his head all night long yazoo jackson vicksburg we must have family in almost every city i spent more time traveling than growing up guess that’s why i’m still shorter than my old man he don’t like to stay in one place much he tell me soon as people get to know your last name seem like they want to call you by your first boy    if someone ask you your name tell them to call you mississippi not sippi or sip but mississippi how many colored folks you know name mississippi none see now you can find a whole lot of folks whose name is canada just like you can find 53 people in any phone book whose name is booker t. washington your mother she was a smart woman gave you a good name not one of them abolitionist names what you look like with a name like john brown or william lloyd garrison that don’t have no class your mother she named you after the river cause of its beauty and mystery just like my mother named me nevada cause she didn’t know where it was

it’s a strange time which finds me jogging in early morning the deadness of sleep alive in this world the empty parks filled with unloved strangers buildings grey with solitude now near the end of another decade i am witness to the loss of my twenties a promise invisible i run without purpose far from the north star i run with the sound of barking dogs closing in i have lost count of the miles i am older and nothing much matters or has changed

i will die this month. how i do not know. still there is much work to be done. i am afraid not for myself but for betty and the girls. some nights i stay awake looking out the window, a gun in my hand. i know how cruel people can be. i have known hatred and blindness. there are brothers waiting to do me harm. i will die for them. i will love them as only i can. may allah be my witness.

sometimes the deaf hear better than the blind some men when they first heard her sing were only attracted to the flower in her hair

you lie in bed listening, waiting, fearing the moment your father returns home. you listen to voices talking in the next room and wonder why you are still afraid of the dark. his voice in the other room you would love to kiss. you cannot see your face in the dark but the blackness is there, like his back. if only he would open the door and look at you. maybe the light would be in his eyes, his voice.