248 Family poems

I'm remembering again, the day we stood on the porch and you smoked while the old man told you about his basement full of wine, his bad heart and the doctor's warning, how he held the dusty bottle out to you, glad, he said, to give it away to someone who appreciated its value and spirit, the years it took to settle into its richness and worth. I'm watching again, each cell alive, as you reach for the wine, your forearm exposed below the rolled sleeve, the fine hairs that sweep along the muscle, glowing, lifting a little in the afternoon breeze. I'm memorizing the shape of the moment: your hand and the small bones lengthening beneath the skin as it tightens in the gripping, in the receiving of the gift, the exact texture and color of your skin, and the old man's face, reduced to its essence. That, and the brief second when both of you had a hand on the bottle— the thing not yet given, not yet taken, but held between you, stoppered, full. And my body is flooded again with an elemental joy, holding onto it against another day in the unknowable future when I'm given terrible news, some dark burden I'll be forced to carry. I know this is useless, and can't possibly work, but I'm saving that moment, for balance.

after Po Chü-i, for Robert Creeley We don’t lack people here on the Northern coast, But they are people one meets, not people one cares for. So I bundle my daughters into the car And with my brother poets, go to visit you, brother. Here come your guests! A swarm of strangers and children; But the strangers write verses, the children are daughters like yours. We bed down on mattresses, cots, roll up on the floor: Outside, burly old fruit trees in mist and rain; In every room, bundles asleep like larvae. We waken and count our daughters. Otherwise, nothing happens. You feed them sweet rolls and melon, drive them all to the zoo; Patiently, patiently, ever the father, you answer their questions. Later, we eat again, drink, listen to poems. Nothing occurs, though we are aware you have three daughters Who last year had four. But even death becomes part of our ease: Poems, parenthood, sorrow, all we have learned From these of tenderness, holds us together In the center of life, entertaining daughters By firelight, with cake and songs. You, my brother, are a good and violent drinker, Good at reciting short-line or long-line poems. In time we will lose all our daughters, you and I, Be temperate, venerable, content to stay in one place, Sending our messages over the mountains and waters.

It’s as when following the others’ lines, Which are the tracks of somebody gone before, Leaving me mischievous clues, telling me who They were and who it was they weren’t, And who it is I am because of them, Or, just for the moment, reading them, I am, Although the next moment I’m back in myself, and lost. My father at the piano saying to me, “Listen to this, he called the piece Warum?” And the nearest my father could come to saying what He made of that was lamely to say he didn’t, Schumann didn’t, my father didn’t, know why. “What’s in a dog’s heart”? I once asked in a poem, And Christopher Ricks when he read it said, “Search me.” He wasn’t just being funny, he was right. You can’t tell anything much about who you are By exercising on the Romantic bars. What are the wild waves saying? I don’t know. And Shelley didn’t know, and knew he didn’t. In his great poem, “Ode to the West Wind,” he Said that the leaves of his pages were blowing away, Dead leaves, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.

Remember the night you got drunk and shot the roses? You were a perfect stranger, Father, even my bad sister cried. Some other gravity, not death or luck, drew fish out of the sea and started them panting. The fish became a man. The archer’s bow became a violin. I remember the night you searched the sofa for change and wept on the telephone. Some other gravity, not time or entropy, pulled the knife down for centuries. The archers dropped their bows, harmless as pine needles in the snow. The knife became a plow and entered the earth, Father. Later it became a boat and some other things — It isn’t a dream but it takes a long time, for the archer’s bow to become a violin.

Luggage first, the lining of his suit jacket dangling As always, just when you’d given up hope Nimbly he backs out of the taxi Eyes nervously extending, like brave crabs Everywhere at once, keeping track of his papers He pilots himself into the home berth Like a small tug in a cloud of seagulls Worries flutter around him so thick It takes him some time to arrive And you wonder if he’s ever really been happy: When the blue eyes blur And stare out to sea Whether it’s only a daydream Or a long pain that silences him In such gray distances You’ll never know, but now Turning to you, the delicate mouth Like a magician Is curious, sensitive, playing tricks, Pouting like a wise turtle It seems he has a secret With the driver, With the stewardess on the airplane So that even when he opens his arms When the warm voice surrounds you, Wraps you in rough bliss, Just before you go under Suddenly you remember: The beloved does not come From nowhere: out of himself, alone Often he comes slowly, carefully After a long taxi ride Past many beautiful men and women And many dead bodies, Mysterious and important companions.

Everything was the apple and the glass of tea. The mountain, the mold, the apron on the grandmother— the neck of a brown baby holding its tiny head to get rid of the black bees. This is the end of a bad century, the opening of a door that was never built into the chest. A volume of loud wires coming out of the ground. My grandfather rising from fifty-four years of death to see me. The instrument carved out of bone. A lock of hair from a famous seventeenth-century poet. The disintegrating bible wishing it was another book. A hanging arm sweeping the water out of the way. My memory of flying through the tunnel that came out of nowhere. A dog with wings and a cat with magic. The sentiment and the sweat. The blue chest of the working man and the bare ankle of a young girl who drank beer. The shadow of a young boy named Carlos and the bare shoulders of a young girl who whispered. The hunger of an older boy named José. The hard work of a brother named Ramón with a closeness and a disagreement among them. A torn pair of work pants and a stiff and muddy pair of gloves. A pocket with two dollars crumbled inside. A bare foot rubbing the bare back of a young girl. The fourth can of beer. The farmhouse that belonged to the family and the chickens that were killed for food. The cactus garden that killed two men when they fell in and the pieces of green cactus that made them dream. The green juice that started the earthquake, the crushed flesh of cactus on their tongues and its swelling that made them dream. A garden hose washing away the blood. The sparrow hovering over the trash can and the back alley stinking of dog shit and drunken men. Falling feathers interpreted for what they bring. A church next door full of sermons and howling black faces. The corner of the house where a young boy went to hide. A single strand of hair found in a high school yearbook, the forgotten idea that hiding it in there would lead to a different life. The piano wounded by stones falling out of the cottonwood. The willow tree spreading over the entire front yard and the tiny white balls of gum that fell out of it one day. The smell of shadows, trains, humor, tumbleweeds, ice, empty parking lots, one or two torn knees, a baseball glove, the first guy to cross the finish line, the fear, the dread and the skill of escaping so no one would start a list of smells. Fear melted the memory of a lost boy. The old house, the rosary around the neck, the crushed dog in the road— a sudden calling from behind to warn him to come in and be still. Who recalls how this ended when the men built their ships and invaded to change the outcome? The right to cry out and wait a whole century. The embers, the lone piano, the oil lamps damaged by a dream. The ambition in the spine. Who will insist on tapping the window to show how easy it is to delay the next hundred years?

We were a Colored Clan of Kinfolk Who threw soil      not salt Over our shoulders Who tendered close the bible Who grew and passed around the almanac at night So we would know What to plant at first light Black soil and sweet brown sorghum From the every morning biscuits Mama Susan fixed Dripping and mixing Up under our fingernails A secret salve Just like any other Living simple And keeping to our proud selves Quite aware of night riders Quite aware of men with Politicious smiles Cologned with kerosene and match Aware of just whose feet Walked across our tin roofs at night We were such light sleepers Such long distance believers We were a family pregnant Whose water had broke And for once there was ham money ’Bacca money So we thought to do better by ourselves To begin our next row We would go and get him Because he was medically degreed in baby bringing Because he was young and white and handsome And because of that Had been neighbor to more knowledge Than us way back behind The country’s proud but inferior lines And because he came with his papers in his pocket So convincing      so soon After his ivy graduation Asking us hadn’t we heard Telling us times had changed And the midwife wasn’t safe anymore Even though we had all been caught By tried and true Black Grannies Who lay ax blade sharp side up And water pan underneath the bed To cut the pain To cool the fever We were a Pregnant Clan of Kinfolk Caught with water running down our legs Old family say they remember Going to fetch him Telling him that it was time That he should come now But he didn’t show right away Not right away But came when he wanted The next day After his breakfast But what more Could we colored country folk ever want Even if we had to watch the road all night for him Even if we had to not let her push too hard When he finally came He had his papers on him Something with one of those pretty shiny seals Old family say they can remember Somethin’ just wasn’t right But we opened the screen for him anyway Trusting And tendering close what the Good Book Had told us all our lives to do Then we made him a path Where he put his hand up      then inside My grandmother’s womb Her precious private pleasing place Somewhere he probably didn’t want to touch Then he pulled my daddy through Somebody he probably didn’t care to reach for And from the first he pulled him wrong And wrong Shattered his collarbone And snapped his soft baby foot in half And smashed the cartilage in his infant hand Wringing Their own sun baked arms Old timey family Remember him well Say they knew somethin’ wasn’t right As he came through the door A day later His breakfast digested now Somethin’ just wasn’t right How he had two waters on him One sweet      one sour-mash One trying to throw snow quilt over the other As he un-carefully As drunkenly He with his papers on him still Stood there turning a brown baby into blue Un-magically And right before our eyes Hope and Pray Hope and Pray Then he packed his bag and      left With all of his official training And gathered up gold stars      left The Virginia land of Cumberland County He left and forgot He left and didn’t remember The afterbirth inside Carlene Godwin Finney To clabber Gangrene Close down Her place Her precious private pleasing place To fill the house to the rafters Up past the dimpled tin roof With a rotting smell That stayed for nine days That mortgaged a room In our memories And did not die with her We were a Brown and Pregnant Family And he would’ve remembered his schoolin’ And left his bottle Recollected his manners And brought his right mind Had another klan called him to their bedside He would’ve come right away He would’ve never had liquor on his breath If the color of my daddy’s broken limbs Had matched the color of his own but We were a Colored Clan of Kinfolk We should’ve met him at the door Should’ve told him lean first into the rusty screen Made him open up his mouth and blow Breathe out right there Into all of our brown and lined up faces In wait of his worthiness Then just for good measure Should’ve made him blow once again Into Papa Josh’s truth telling jar Just to be sure Should’ve let Mama Sally Then Aunt Nanny Then lastly Aunt Mary Give him the final once over And hold his sterile hands Down to the firelight to check Just like she checked our own every night Before supper Before we were allowed to sit At her very particular table We could’ve let Aunt Ira clutch him by his chin Enter and leave through her eyes Just like how she came and went through us Everyday at her leisure She would’ve took care to notice As she traveled all up and through him Any shaking      any sweating And caught his incapable belligerent incompetence In time Oh Jesus We should’ve let Grandpop Robert Have him from the first Should’ve let him pick him up By the back of his pants And swirl him around Just like he picked us up And swirled us around Anytime he caught us lying or lazy Or being less than what we were We should’ve let Grandpop Loose on him from the start And he would’ve held him up High eye to the sun And looked straight through him Just like he held us up And then we would have known first Like he always knew first And brought to us The very map of his heart Then we would have known Just what his intentions were With our Carlene Before we knew his name Or cared about his many degrees Before he dared reach up      then inside Our family’s brown globe While we stood there Some of us throwing good black soil With one hand Some of us tending close The Good Book with the other Believing and trusting We were doing better By this one Standing there Waterfalls running Screaming whitewater rapids Down our pants legs Down our pantaloons To our many selves All the while Praying hard That maybe we were wrong (please make us wrong) One hundred proof Smelled the same as Isopropyl

Great-Grandfather Fray was a white man. He went to another Virginia county to get Grandpa Albert (his own mixed son) a wife. He wanted a dark-skin woman because Grandpa looked white. —Aunt Edna Old Man Fray always matched his mules precisely like fitted pieces of a puzzle. The horses at the mill were perfect pairs. So it was not too far for him to travel from his valley over blue mountains to a distant Virginia county where Randolph slaves were darker, with molasses-colored Songhai skin, African kinked hair and mahogany eyes. He wanted to untie the weave of the Gordian Knot, complicated tangle he had created, with the issue of silk-haired Albert, his son, too fair to hide among the varied blacks. The journey was apology or shame. But cut or unwoven, the knotted weave leaves kinks too deep to hide or smooth away. Great-Grandma Rhoda, the woman Old Man Fray found, opulent with African genes, richly colored the complex threads of our generations.

When you step through the back door into the kitchen father is still sitting at the table with a newspaper folded open in front of him and pen raised, working the crossword puzzle. In the living room mother is sleeping her peaceful sleep at last, in a purple robe, with her head back, slippered feet up and twisted knuckle hands crossed right over left in her lap. Through the south window in your old room you see leaves on the giant ash tree turning yellow again in setting sun and falling slowly to the ground and one by one all the questions you ever had become clear. Number one across: a four-letter word for no longer. Number one down: an eleven letter word for gone.

All night vigil. My two-and-a-half-year-old boy and his 10-month-old sister lay on the same bed, facing opposite ends; their feet touching. They looked soft, peaceful, bundled there in strands of blankets. I brushed away roaches that meandered across their faces, but not even that could wake them. Outside, the dark cover of night tore as daybreak bloomed like a rose on a stem of thorns. I sat down on the backsteps, gazing across the yellowed yard. A 1954 Chevy Bel-Air stared back. It was my favorite possession. I hated it just then. It didn’t start when I tried to get it going earlier that night. It had a bad solenoid. I held a 12-gauge shotgun across my lap. I expected trouble from the Paragons gang of the west Lynwood barrio. Somebody said I dove the car that dudes from Colonia Watts used to shoot up the Paragons’ neighborhood. But I got more than trouble that night. My wife had left around 10 p.m. to take a friend of mine home. She didn’t come back. I wanted to kill somebody. At moments, it had nothing to do with the Paragons. It had to do with a woman I loved. But who to kill? Not her– sweet allure wrapped in a black skirt. I’d kill myself first. Kill me first? But she was the one who quit! Kill her? No, think man! I was hurt, angry. . . but to kill her? To kill a Paragon? To kill anybody? I went into the house and put the gun away. Later that morning, my wife came for her things: some clothes, the babies. . . their toys. A radio, broken TV, and some dishes remained. I didn’t stop her. There was nothing to say that my face didn’t explain already. Nothing to do. . . but run. So I drove the long haul to Downey and parked near an enclosed area alongside the Los Angeles River. I got out of the car, climbed over the fence and stumbled down the slopes. A small line of water rippled in the middle. On rainy days this place flooded and flowed, but most of the time it was dry with dumped garbage and dismembered furniture. Since a child, the river and its veins of canals were places for me to think. Places to heal. Once on the river’s bed, I began to cleanse. I ran. I ran into the mist of morning, carrying the heat of emotion through the sun’s rays; I ran past the factories that lay smack in the middle of somebody’s backyard. I ran past alleys with overturned trashcans and mounds of tires. Debris lay underfoot. Overgrown weeds scraped my legs as I streamed past; recalling the song of bullets that whirred in the wind. I ran across bridges, beneath overhead passes, and then back alongside the infested walls of the concrete river; splashing rainwater as I threaded, my heels colliding against the pavement. So much energy propelled my legs and, just like the river, it went on for miles. When all was gone, the concrete river was always there and me, always running.