Fred D'Aguiar

The shoemaker’s wife ran preschool With a fist made not so much of iron But wire bristles on a wooden brush. She made us recite and learn by rote. Our trick was to mouth words, sound As if we knew what we would one day Come to know, what would dawn On us as sure as a centipede knows What to do with its myriad legs. She made us settle our feet on the mud Floor of her daub and wattle hut and she Wielded a cane cut from wood that bit Into the palm of the hand and left a burn That resonated up the arm for an age After its smart swing and crisp contact. Worst of all was the shoe cupboard Where the old man stored his wire Brushes: a cold, dark, narrow place, Replete with brushes hung on nails Covering every square inch and said To come alive when a child was locked In with them so that they scrubbed Flesh off that child’s bones. She said We would end up there if we did not Concentrate, so we stilled our feet And spoke the words in the right order For colors in a rainbow until the very Thing took her place in front of us Arranged in cuneiform, polished, Brandishing a window to climb out.

Long before you see train The tracks sing and tremble, Long before you know direction Train come from, a hum Announces it soon arrive. So we tend to drop on all fours Even before we look left or right. We skip the sleepers or walk Along by balancing on a rail. We talk about the capital Where the train ends its run From the interior stacked with The outsized trunks of felled Trees and open-topped cars of bauxite. We always hide from it unsure What the train will do if we Stand next to the tracks. It flattens our nails into knives, It obliterates any traffic Caught by it at crossroads, It whistles a battle cry, Steam from the engine a mood Not to mess with or else. Rails without beginning or end, Twinned hopes always at your back, Always up front signaling you on, Double oxen, hoof stomp, temper Tantrum, stampede, clatter Matter, head splitter, hear us, Stooped with an ear to the line— greenheart, mora, baromalli, purple heart, crabwood, kabakalli, womara.

For Yogita and Anish “Ah neva seen this before in all ma years.” Testify, Sis. How we grew accustomed, Spoiled almost, by decorum, now try Mosquito larvae cultivating at speed In standing bodies of water. Pigeons Flock rooftops, twist, launch, shout As one, spin sky, turn skulls porous. Car repair shop drills sing industry. Tires feel out parking, meters freed. First horn blare triggers this chorus. Step up pistons, fire motor mouths, Say our only worry is our worst fears Come true. Mosquito straw proboscis Drinks from my arm, bam! Adios asterisk. • But, really, am I eyeballing an armored truck? Says one dung beetle to half earthworm, Who replies, as Gloucester, I see it feelingly. Who gave those uniforms permission to storm School car parks, automatics drawn? Finches ask Robins, who, channeling Auden, whistle — Bang! WTF! Bang, bang, Lulu, Lulu gone... The calypso worked its juju On my digital radio. Flags at half-mast for this Union. Taps on trumpets dawn till dusk. Guides, Scouts, look out for rainbows Projected on a disused warehouse in LA County. Clocks throughout the land tell one contiguous time. Rain and shine stop dead in tracks on borderlines. • Cat asks me if dogs can ever be cool. After two of my kind pin down one of his On a front porch until chased off by our rulers. I open my mouth to spit some piety about Lions lying down with lambs but only bark What my genes say I should, ears pulled back. Do you remember Judas Iscariot? Thirty silver Pieces and a certain last supper just for this. A taser for every problem warns the bee With an empty bonnet, sting for emphasis, About why one plus one never makes two, After voting from sea to oil-slicked sea. Look at her, look at him, hold, kiss babies In photo ops, all gaga, minus bathtub Never mind water, in this national soap, This wait for the next sentence whose weight “Illegals” carry on shoulders they look over Nonstop, even in sleep, one eye open, Breath held when police cruise by, Car backfire skin jump heartbeat skip, Day in, day out, glory hallelujah, do I have A witness as empire zips into bonfire. For what? To dip wrists in fresh water From an inverted fountain in a square. • Black lives matter but blue lives matter more. Duh. Veins, blue, blood, plus or minus, B this or A that. Epicurus, I find your coin staring up at me From the bottom of my beer mug, too late For Troy, for Trayvon. I need a flotation device, A buoy, Woolf’s lighthouse and single room Garvey’s Star Line to beam me up Scotty. Where is yesteryear’s full moon that silvered Towers and made a midnight lake of the city Where lovers strolled, hand in hand, one black, One white, with no mind for anyone and no two Minds in their business? Gone the way of drones Whose shadows crossed the moon without trace On GPS to sow grief in the name of cod, liver, oil. Spell it out or risk talk stuck in ecofriendly caves. Black and blue, both, why can’t we, intoned, Rodney (not Walter), get along? Because, Because, because (fill in the dots) with your Trotsky (or Brodsky) and your Marx (Groucho). Laugh therapy narrows eyes, blocks ears, Hurts jaws, ribs, merrily, merrily, cha-cha. Cha. • Eek-A-Mouse blasts my buds, as I read The instruction manual, which says One thing but leads to another When I piece it together, finally. It being the thing I refuse to name. My nerves, porous as that strainer I hold over a tilted pot full of spaghetti In hot water. Pavarotti in the shower, Malcolm before a cracked mirror, Gaga at each news item competing For part Fool. Ornate, abandoned nest Left in place, in my suburban rafter, Squirreled from without a note, Unless feathers could ever be a sign Of things to come, of what once was. • Face Beckett’s door, imperceptibly ajar. His stage direction, for how things Turn out here if this show goes on. Sir Ian, why reserve your last check For your flies, before you take the stage? Because all eyes alight there first. Mr. Spock, where is the logic in this? I marvel at comics from my youth In 4K, LED.Captain, put me ashore. By which I mean at sea with sirens, Ears unwaxed, sternum lashed to bow. What is your name? Kunta. Whip. Am I not a ... asked Sizwe in Fugard. You are trans, on loan from genes, Dust, waves, particles, here, today. • Go-go in la-la land whines craft for art’s saké. See that chrysalis hanging like a mural. Should it stop unfolding, hold back Dues, suspend when wings peel gloves, Snake free, take flight, remind the greed In our chi, Che, cha, what turns without Turning? If you must know, but first, Shush, write milk in lemon juice on foolscap, Read by passing over Bunsen. Mercurial Chemists, we were all Curie. Cooked crack Ready to pay any price, to find out if love Could ever be a portion, all you would need, To spin Mercator a tad faster on whiteout Poles, match our heart, tap, rat-a-tat burst. • 1.  Hummingbird feeder needs refill 2.  Peel sticker, off window, that says glass 3.  Buy T-shirt with directive, mind the gap 4.  Sip tea from mug, of civil rights dead 5.  Breathe in, sure, but really exhale 6.  Note how breeze lifts a whole branch 7.  Whose green skirt shows white undies • I mean certain legends about flight that grow up with right minds to help them come to terms with change that may be out of their control. Lone branch ranges from a curved palm 90 feet over LA’s 1914 craftsman in historic Adams. How flayed branch cruises broadcasts a specific gravity geared to flight of the right kind, slow, bracing, reluctant, noncommittal, inevitable, and resigned to its fate. Through double-glazing I hear, so I believe, that swoosh of storied capital decline, swish perhaps, almost a whistle, as you wish, much like us as kids with a clasped blade of grass held to our pursed lips for that didgeridoo that was elevator music to us atonal types. But how can a branch sing if made to move on by wind and rain from where it began, and thought it would end, even if a philosophy spread among shoots of a final sail set for another dimension? As word of government raids spread through town and university we forwarded emails, Instagrams, and stopped with neighbors in streets to exchange the latest. Is this time for emergency measures or are we too blind to know what we can feel coming a mile away, where someone who knows someone we know stops for bread, milk, eggs and is grabbed, handcuffed, and carted off to detention? Imagine us as branches dislodged in a sea change helped by soft water. We cling, not to give up on all we know. What for? That fall, we must accept as fate. • Juggernaut ancestors shape-shift cumulus, March across dull blue grass to bagpipes. Change bandages on Grandmother. Amputated right hand she says she feels Rainy days in Georgetown as a firm handshake That rattles all 27 phantom bones, makes her shiver. Grandfather never averts his bifurcated lens From his Golden Treasury, unless his hanky readies To catch eyewater at the blurred sight of her. In a time of airships, of toothpicks operated Behind hand cover. Whoever you vote for, (Runs the calypso) the government gets in, Ting-a-ling-a-ling. Doan tek serious thing Mek joke, bannoh. WTF. Twin towers got us Here. Nah, Reagan. Nope, slavery. Try again. Irony, that republic of deferred action. Hummingbird smashes into that glass door, My mother walks absently into it too. I glance just in time, brake and catch a face That I look through to my final destination. • K Street in South London? Now? How? One morning at 6:30 I crossed Blackheath Hill. On my paper round Met a scrawny fox halfway Uphill, down, not sure. We paused, inhaled each Other, fox-trotted away, In a slight panic, Me thinking tabloid Headlines, rabid animal Chases paper kid On delivery route. Follow as I buzz myself Into a tower, Board elevator, a man In a suit exits, With the merest nod. Climb 8 floors, carry That fox, and just as I plunge The folded Mirror Into letter box, Door, ajar, flies open, wham! A very pregnant Woman, naked, swollen breasts Blazing redhead, small Burning bush at crotch, Fills doorframe, scrambles my head. She takes one moment To compute I am Not her partner, slams door, smack, In my wide-eyed face. That moment, as she Processes me and I her, Stretches out enough For me to see her Shoulder-length, red, flaming curls And inverted red Triangle tuft at her crotch, Bright stretched skin at her Distended navel, An outie, as though I crashed at high speed and could Recall the lead up Frame by stark frame for Posterity, mine and hers, Her child near its term. The rest of my round I peer left, right, near distance, Round bends, for said fox. I conjure woman, Pregnant, framed by her threshold, Here, now, with only Me, you, these measures, This emergency, all three, To foster, connect all. • Lap up 70s Airy Hall, Guyana. One road in and one road out, One of everything village, Caiman, donkey, peacock, And mad expat Englishman Footloose and fancy-free Who we stone with red sand That crumbles on contact Grabbed from the roadside That acts as giant bow, Strung with two-story house, Whose Greenheart frame, Tensed, held all this time. English pelted for saying, Down his big burnt nose, That he was sent here To rule us half-clad children That he in his better days Seeing better times before Guyana’s famous red rum Got the better of him, Helped sow high and low, And everything between Our town and country. • Maestro, we played shoots Planted in one place Sprouts in disorderly rows, Up whole feet if you look away For a spell, all loaded In one hammock strung Between rafters in a back room Empty until harvest Stuffed paddy from roof To pillar to post. Rice husk smell for days. Rocking chair song and dance On full moons, donkey-bray At midday, peacock-scream Various most afternoons. • Now help bring barefoot Pale instep, cracked heel, stamping Englishman back, not to curse, Stone or ridicule, but to hear How he would remedy this now So out of sync with then. • Once more help us • Parse wheat from chaff, • Quantify this voting • Result that tests our gall. • Stepped-on alligator, Uncle • Takes for a log bridge • Until it lifts, shakes, yawns. • Velocity of legs cycling air, Caiman, not alligator, Lassoed between two poles, Fetched back to the house, Cut loose in a fenced field For sport for that day, Lost to me every day since. I bring it back, steady Its shine, against this time, • Where I am told one past Counts most, all others Must be put down to what That alligator, jaws open, Head reared, presents, Ready to lash with tail, Charge at anyone Who takes it for a log. • X marks the spot where Englishman walks in half Circles, pumps his bent Arms as if to fly, cackles Like a peacock, only to get The real thing started, The two in a quarrel thrice Removed from that magic Flower duet from Lakmé By Léo Delibes. Peacock, Donkey, caiman, village fool, Be my ally, bring it all, Cow, moon, dish, spoon. • Yo-Yo Ma follows Eek On democracy’s Shuffle Play. • Zebra asks me in Queen’s English peppered with Esperanto If he be black whiff white stripes Or white wid black stripes. I wake with this atonal pair On the edge of my edginess: “I do not care, I do not care, If the Don has on underwear.” “But don’t you think or worry some, That his nudity is zero sum?” “I cannot see for the life of me, Why that should concern anybody.” “I fret when all’s said and done, We leave him be, he has his fun.”