Patricia Smith

When black, men drown. They spend their whole lifetimes justifying the gall of springing the trap, the inconvenience of slouched denim, of coupling beyond romance or aim. All the while, the rising murk edges toward their chins. Hurriedly, someone crafts another scientific tome, a giddy exploration of the curious dysfunction identifying black men first as possible, then as necessary. Elegant equations succumb to a river that blurs quotient and theory, rendering them unreadable, and the overwhelm easily disappears the men, their wiry heads glistening, then gulped. All that’s left is the fathers’ last wisdom, soaked wreckage on silver: Girl, that water ain’t nothing but wet. I’m gon’ be alright. When black men drown, their daughters turn to their mothers and ask What should I do with this misnamed shiver in my left shoulder? How should I dress in public? They are weary of standing at the shore, hands shading their eyes, trying to make out their own fathers among the thousands bobbing in the current. The mothers mumble and point to any flailing that seems familiar. Mostly, they’re wrong. Buoyed by church moans and comfort food of meat and cream, the daughters try on other names that sound oddly broken when pressed against the dank syllables of the fathers’. Drained, with just forward in mind, they walk using the hip of only one parent. They scratch in their sleep. Black water wells up in the wound. When black men drown, their daughters are fascinated with the politics of water, how gorgeously a surface breaks to receive, how it weeps so sanely shut. And the thrashing of hands, shrieking of names:I was Otis, I was Willie Earl, they called me Catfish. Obsessed by the waltzing of tides, the daughters remember their fathers—the scorch of beard electrifying the once-in-a-while kiss, the welts in thick arms, eyes wearied with so many of the same days wedged behind them. When black men drown, their daughters memorize all the steps involved in the deluge. They know how long it takes for a weakened man to dissolve. A muted light, in the shape of a little girl, used to be enough to light a daddy’s way home. When black men drown, their daughters drag the water’s floor with rotting nets, pull in whatever still breathes. They insist their still-dripping daddies sit down for cups of insanely sweetened tea, sniffs of rotgut, tangled dinners based on improbable swine. The girls hope to reacquaint their drowned fathers with the concept of body, but outlines slosh in drift and retreat. The men can’t get dry. Parched, they scrub flooded hollows and weep for water to give them name and measure as mere blood once did. Knocking over those spindly-legged dinette chairs, they interrupt the failed feast and mutter Baby girl, gotta go, baby gotta go, their eyes misted with their own murders. Grabbing their girls, they spit out love in reverse and stumble toward the banks of some river. When black men drown their daughters, the rash act is the only plausible response to the brain’s tenacious mouth and its dare:Yes, yes, open your ashed hands and release that wingless child. Note the arc of the sun-drenched nosedive, the first syllable of the child’s name unwilling from the man’s mouth, the melody of billow that begins as blessed clutch. Someone crouching inside the father waits impatiently for the shutting, the lethargic envelop, and wonders if the daughter’s wide and realizing eye will ever close to loose him. It never will, and the man and his child and the daughter and her father gaze calmly into the wrecked science of each other’s lives. The sun struggles to spit a perfect gold upon the quieting splash. The river pulses stylish circles of its filth around the swallow.

“The orgasm has replaced the cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment.” —Malcolm Muggeridge, 1966 I. Hubbie 1 used to get wholly pissed when I made myself come.I’m right here!, he’d sputter, blood popping to the surface of his fuzzed cheeks, goddamn it, I’m right here! By that time, I was in no mood to discuss the myriad merits of my pointer, or to jam the brakes on the express train slicing through my blood, It was easier to suffer the practiced professorial huff, the hissed invectives and the cold old shoulder, liver-dotted, quaking with rage. Shall we pause to bless professors and codgers and their bellowed, unquestioned ownership of things? I was sneaking time with my own body. I know I signed something over, but it wasn’t that. II. No matter how I angle this history, it’s weird, so let’s just say Bringing Up Baby was on the telly and suddenly my lips pressing against the couch cushions felt spectacular and I thought wow this is strange, what the hell, I’m 30 years old, am I dying down there is this the feel, does the cunt go to heaven first, ooh, snapped river, ooh shimmy I had never had it never knew, oh i clamored and lurched beneath my little succession of boys I cried writhed hissed, ooh wee, suffered their flat lapping and machine-gun diddling their insistent c’mon girl c’mon until I memorized the blueprint for drawing blood from their shoulders, until there was nothing left but the self-satisfied liquidy snore of he who has rocked she, he who has made she weep with script. But this, oh Cary, gee Katherine, hallelujah Baby, the fur do fly, all gush and kaboom on the wind. III. Don’t hate me because I am multiple, hurtling. As long as there is still skin on the pad of my finger, as long as I’m awake, as long as my (new) husband’s mouth holds out, I am the spinner, the unbridled, the bellowing freak. When I have emptied him, he leans back, coos, edges me along, keeps wondering count. He falls to his knees in front of it, marvels at my yelps and carousing spine, stares unflinching as I bleed spittle unto the pillows. He has married a witness. My body bucks, slave to its selfish engine, and love is the dim miracle of these little deaths, fracturing, speeding for the surface. IV. We know the record. As it taunts us, we have giggled, considered stopwatches, little laboratories. Somewhere beneath the suffering clean, swathed in eyes and silver, she came 134 times in one hour. I imagine wires holding her tight, her throat a rattling window. Searching scrubbed places for her name, I find only reams of numbers. I ask the quietest of them: V. Are we God?

i. the old marrieds But why the moon rose so cruelly, neither of them would say. Though a listless jazz buzzed obediently beneath their day, and he had seen the hand-in-hands dotting the dim streets. And she had heard the morning skillet scorch its Mississippi sweets, its globs of fat. Now, time to be closer — here, on the verge of May. But why the moon drooped so cruelly, neither ventured to say. ii. kitchenette building We are soft-caged behind streaked windows, our someday plans grayed and siphoned flat. “Faith” is simply a church sound, not strong like “factory,” “scrubbing the chitlins,” or “keeping that man.” But could faith be a blatant gold blasting through dinner’s fatty fumes, its perfumed lure tangling with the smell of twice-fried potatoes and twist-tied bags of reeking rubbish lining the dark hall? Fluttering beneath florescent sputter, could faith warm our rooms, even the walls scrubbed raw with Baptist chill? If we let faith in, had the mind to carve it a space, keep it Sunday clean, anticipate its slow glories, beg it to begin? We can’t spare the time faith needs. We don’t have that minute. Since silly wants like hot water require we be practical now, we wait and wait on the bathroom, hope the warm stays in it. iii. the mother Murders will not let you forget. You remember the children you had — suddenly quarry, target — the daughters with gunfire smoldering circles in their napped hair, the absent sons whose screams still ride the air. You knew the ways of bullets, prayed your child run, outrun, beat them in their race toward the heart of your baby, your sweet. You imagine another child cocking the hammer with his thumb, or blazing the blade forward, harkening the dark that will overcome you. Never again will you look at a bright, upturned face and sigh, returning again and again to drown your baby in the mama-eye. I hear on Kilbourn, on Christiana, the not-there of my children. I have pushed them flail and wriggle from my tired body, eased my babies into a world of growl and gun. The breath-suck, I wailed and prayed, my loves, as rougher mothers seized you. Now I am newly barren, drained of mother luck, and you are suddenly far beyond my futile reach. If I let these frantic streets deny the tender in your names, if I relinquished you to this city and its unrelenting games, your end is all I own. If I dared let others govern your deaths, if I wasn’t there to mourn your final blurring breaths, believe that my loss of you to this was not deliberate. Though I have no right to whine, whine that none of the blame was mine, since, in every world I’m rooted in, you are dead. Or rather, or instead, you are so much a hollow of the children I made. But now you are scar on the pavement. I am afraid — is that the you there is now, how the story of you will be said? You were born — a gunshot, a swift blade — then you died. It’s too much this way — even the child who killed you cried. Believe. I loved you all. Be. Leave me the sounds of still-thudding hearts. I grieve you All. iv. a song in the back yard I’ve wallowed in the back yard all my life. I want to slide ’round front Where it’s gold-splashed and guarded and spined fragrance grows. A girl gets a craving for rose. I want to go in the front yard now and far away from these nappy weeds — this alley too. I wanna see where the well-off children play. I want some proper fun today. They do some miracle things. They have that secret kinda fun. My daddy says They’re uppity, but I think it’s fine how they’re tucked in their beds by a quarter to nine. My mama, with her country ways, try as she may, will never turn me into a weeds and wildflowers woman, that’s a fact. I only stay up late on account of all her party folk flooding our back gate. But that’s OK. I think front yard folk are perfect. Really, I do. And I’m gonna be a righteous woman, too. And wear a soft cardigan, cashmere trimmed in lace. And stroll ’round all of Lawndale with this righteous on my face.

Hurricanes, 2005 Arlene learned to dance backwards in heels that were too high. Bret prayed for a shaggy mustache made of mud and hair. Cindy just couldn’t keep her windy legs together. Dennis never learned to swim. Emily whispered her gusts into a thousand skins. Franklin, farsighted and anxious, bumbled villages. Gert spat her matronly name against a city’s flat face. Harvey hurled a wailing child high. Irene, the baby girl, threw pounding tantrums. José liked the whip sound of slapping. Lee just craved the whip. Maria’s thunder skirts flew high when she danced. Nate was mannered and practical. He stormed precisely. Ophelia nibbled weirdly on the tips of depressions. Philippe slept too late, flailing on a wronged ocean. Rita was a vicious flirt. She woke Philippe with rumors. Stan was born business, a gobbler of steel. Tammy crooned country, getting the words all wrong. Vince died before anyone could remember his name. Wilma opened her maw wide, flashing rot. None of them talked about Katrina. She was their odd sister, the blood dazzler.

Some lamp sputters its dusty light across some desk. Some hand, shaking, works the strained rope, twisting and knifing, weaving, tugging tight a bellowing circle. Randy Travis, steamy drawl and hiccup on the staticky AM, backs the ritual of drooping loop. Sweat drips an awful hallelujah. God glares askance, but the artist doesn’t waver—wrists click cadence, knots become a path to what makes saviors. The sagging hoop bemoans a need to squeeze, its craving for a breath within the ring.

This is not morning. There is a nastiness slowing your shoes, something you shouldn’t step in. It’s shattered beads, stomped flowers, vomit— such stupid beauty, beauty you can stick a manicured finger into and through, beauty that doesn’t rely on any sentence the sun chants, it’s whiskey swelter blown scarlet. Call this something else. Last night it had a name, a name wedged between an organ’s teeth, a name pumping a virgin unawares, a curse word. Wail it, regardless, Weak light, bleakly triumphant, will unveil scabs, snippets of filth music, cars on collapsed veins. The whole of gray doubt slithers on solemn skin. Call her New Orleans. Each day she wavers, not knowing how long she can stomach the introduction of needles, the brash, boozed warbling of bums with neon crowns, necklaces raining. She tries on her voice, which sounds like cigarettes, pubic sweat, brown spittle lining a sax bell the broken heel on a drag queen’s scarlet slings. Your kind of singing. Weirdly in love, you rhumba her edges, drink fuming concoctions, lick your lukewarm breakfast directly from her crust. Go on, admit it. You are addicted to her brick hips, the thick swerve she elicits, the way she kisses you, her lies wide open. She prefers alleys, crevices, basement floors. Hell, let her woo you. This kind of romance dims the worth of soldiers, bends and breaks the back, sips manna from muscle, tells you Leave your life. Pack your little suitcase, flee what is rigid and duly prescribed. Let her touch that raw space between cock and calm, the place that scripts such jazz. Let her pen letters addressed to your asking. You s-s-stutter. New Orleans’s, p-please. Don’t. Blue is the color stunning your tongue. At least the city pretends to remember to be listening. She grins with glint tooth, wiping your mind blind of the wife, the children, the numb ritual of job and garden plot. Gently, she leads you out into the darkness and makes you drink rain.

Aloft between heaven and them, I babble the landscape—what staunch, vicious trees, what cluttered roads, slow cars. This is my country as it was gifted me—victimless, vast. The soundtrack buzzing the air around my ears continually loops ditties of eagles and oil. I can’t choose. Every moment I’m awake, aroused instrumentals channel theme songs, speaking what I cannot. I don’t ever have to come down. I can stay hooked to heaven, dictating this blandness. My flyboys memorize flip and soar. They’ll never swoop real enough to resurrect that other country, won’t ever get close enough to give name to tonight’s dreams darkening the water. I understand that somewhere it has rained.

I was birthed restless and elsewhere gut dragging and bulging with ball lightning, slush, broke through with branches, steel I was bitch-monikered, hipped, I hefted a whip rain, a swirling sheet of grit. Scraping toward the first of you, hungering for wood, walls, unturned skin. With shifting and frantic mouth, I loudly loved the slow bones of elders, fools, and willows.

Gotta love us brown girls, munching on fat, swinging blue hips, decked out in shells and splashes, Lawdie, bringing them woo hips. As the jukebox teases, watch my sistas throat the heartbreak, inhaling bassline, cracking backbone and singing thru hips. Like something boneless, we glide silent, seeping 'tween floorboards, wrapping around the hims, and ooh wee, clinging like glue hips. Engines grinding, rotating, smokin', gotta pull back some. Natural minds are lost at the mere sight of ringing true hips. Gotta love us girls, just struttin' down Manhattan streets killing the menfolk with a dose of that stinging view. Hips. Crying 'bout getting old—Patricia, you need to get up off what God gave you. Say a prayer and start slinging. Cue hips.

“We do not dig graves or put caskets into graves any longer. The decision was made and funeral homes were notified that families andfuneral homes would have to supply grave-digging personnel.” —Ed Mazoue, New Orleans City Real Estate Administrator and Person in Charge of the City’s Cemeteries There’s nothing but mud. The ground looks dry and firm, but underneath is a stew of storm. Stout shovels, rusted, grow gummed and heavy with what I heft and rearrange. Progress is slow. The sun so often steams me shut, and I have to stop to gulp sugared bites of tea, flick away sweat with my swollen fingers, swat hard at sluggish flies who hover, like they know. And when I start again, there’s a rhythm to it, some ticking jazz that gets my square hips involved. I craft a chant purely for downbeat: Plunge.   Push.   Lift.   Toss it. Plunge.   Push.   Lift.   Toss it. My untried muscles blaze, joints click, pulse clutches my chest. Whole clocks later, I pause to relish the feat, to marvel at the way I’ve compromised the earth, how I’ve been that kind of God for a minute. But only time has moved. It’s like trying to reach the next world with a spoon. My boy would have laughed. Daddy, you better sit down and watch some ball game, and we’d settle, Sunday lazy, his squirm balanced on my belly. He needed what I was and what I wasn’t. Giggling in little language, he lobbed me the ball soft, walked slower when I was at his side, shared puffed white bread and purple jelly. He waited patiently for me after dark while I shuffled piles of books, looking for a bedtime drama of spacemen or soldiers, some crayoned splash to wrap his day around. But every night, when I opened the door to his room, all I saw was a quivering mountain of Snoopys, Blues, and Scoobys. Underneath them, his happy body could barely cage breath. Giggles unleashed his toes. My line, then:Where are yoooou? Plunge.   Push.   Lift.   Toss it. Plunge.   Push.   Lift.   Toss— With the dirt balanced high, screaming my shoulder, I think hard on those nights of tussle and squeal. I want to feel his heat and twist in my arms again. I have to dig.