Samiya Bashir

what remained: barren stalks bowing heads by the field-full. rusty air conditioners dripping from warped windowsills. rock formations retaining roots. hollowed out caves and dog stumps forced ragged, toothy grins. all ablaze. a laser show shot hot through the tinny night. every husk wore a well lit protrusion. every breath an asthmatic thrush more material than the silence that surrounds each carcass now: voided prayer: cold arthritic grating: remembering notions of breath. saints: offer a hand to a wheezing shadow: wish for someone to hold before the sure, sudden twilight.

Many of my race have lived long without the touch of these fine things which separate us from beasts. Things I call my own now. Having served thirty-six years as needleman for a family far more ape than we will ever be, I rode the moonlight train to find my free. Up here it is colder than I like, but the gentlemen admire my frock coats above all. I taught my son this trade and hope this picture I made will help retrieve him. Come summer I leave this coast for Philadelphia where I hear we of color can breathe yet more free. Tonight I stitch. The breeze off the bay smells of aria. It is almost the season for cloaks.

When Albert Murray said the second law adds up to the blues that in other words ain’t nothing nothing he meant it not quite the way my pops says nomads don’t show emotions but more how my grandmother warned that men like women with soft hands blood red nails like how Mingus meant truth if  you had time for it facts if  you got no time that years pass. Zero one two three and the man you used to flirt with you can no longer flirt with thank goodness. He’s now a man you can’t wear your  jaw out on about weather news or work a perfect strawberry buried beneath a peck.

if this is a game then we have made it, unknowing, to the final four. unlikely underdogs. spectators turned to suspect sport. anti-athletes. out of shape beyond reason. at season’s height we fight for a limited audience. few dancers. fewer cheers. down by 30 and our coach m.i.a. we, foolish, dribble. each bounce-back brings a stranger. can’t call us for traveling because we ain’t going nowhere. instead, we trade terrified looks. search for the pass but no one stays open for long. even if we knew what to do to pull this through we’ve got two other teams waiting, impatient, to take us out.

Only sometimes does homegrown bedrock glow moneygreen. Sometimes rock whines mommy. Sometimes rock coos baby. Sometimes rock calls late with the mortgage. Sometimes rock knits shoulder blades right where you can’t pluck. Early mornings something doesn’t sit right over the sink. Sits crooked. Slumps askew. Body doesn’t lay the way you left it. Squinting gets you nowhere. You squat to the floor and feel around. Stop. Smell for it. Shrug. Still some dangling something modifies you. Smackdab midchest you feel lumpy empty. Sniff. Sniff. Shrug. Like those days we grab our own pickaxes and head down to the mine. We hum worksongs. We sing hymns. We chip worry stone. We gather moss. We lie flat. We scratch at the mineshaft. Not toward exit but deeper to the core.

Stairs: a rushed flight down thirty-eight; French doors unlocked always. Always: a lie; an argument. Argument: two buck hunters circle a meadow’s edge. Edge: one of us outside bleeding. Bleeding: shards of glass; doors locked. Locked: carpet awash with blood. Blood: lift and drop; a sudden breeze. Breeze: its whistle through bone. Bone: the other was looking at — Bone: cradled to catch drips. Drips: quiet as a meadow fawn. Fawn: faces down each hunter each gun. Gun: again. Again: somebody call someone. Someone: almost always prefers forgetting. Forgetting: an argument; a lie. Lie: a meadow; a casement; a stair.