478 Identity poems

She. My people came from Korelitz where they grew yellow cucumbers and studied the Talmud. He. Mine pored over the mud of mangold- and potato-pits or flicked through kale plants from Comber as bibliomancers of old went a-flicking through deckle-mold. She. Mine would lie low in the shtetl when they heard the distant thunder stolen by the Cossacks. He. It was potato sacks lumped together on a settle mine found themselves lying under, the Peep O'Day Boys from Loughgall making Defenders of us all. She. Mine once controlled the sugar trade from the islets of Langerhans and were granted the deed to Charlottesville.He. Indeed? My people called a spade a spade and were admitted to the hanse of pike- and pickax-men, shovels leaning to their lean-to hovels. She. Mine were trained to make a suture after the bomb and the bombast have done their very worst. He. Between fearsad and verst we may yet construct our future as we've reconstructed our past and cry out, my love, each to each from his or her own quicken-queach. She. Each from his stand of mountain ash will cry out over valley farms spotlit with pear blossom. He. There some young Absalom picks his way through cache after cache of ammunition and small arms hidden in grain wells, while his nag tugs at a rein caught on a snag.

I play on Grove Street, live on Grove Avenue. Find me in the streets dressed in greens like groves. On the avenue, I’m a blue jeans type of guy. In the streets, never leave home w/out my 9mm. On the avenue, always carry my pen & wine key, in case some fool blows his cork. My UZI sings songs in the streets—rat-a-tat-tat. Birds chirp-chirp-chirp in trees on the avenue. Rolling down the street w/my lady—what she wanna do? “Let’s do a drive-by.” Rushing down the avenue w/my baby: “I’m hungry. Let’s do drive-thru.” I’ll punch punks purple & blue in the streets, bleed ’em w/bullets. On the avenue, I’ll leave punching to punks dressed in blues, reds, et cetera & mind my own.

i be but i don’t is. i been & i am one who be on my own biz. i love not a b____. but see know i been loved. i’m one who been that & then not deserved much cuz i been on my own dirt. i don’t know love. i been a lie but don’t be a lie i be fly sometimes but don’t be a fly sometimes i be addict-like but not high like an addict’s like. just scratching low stones like an addict might. stop? not an option. i be getting mine. been getting over. been over this but be caught in a cycle. but you be what you be & it be good. & i be moved & making new habits.

Because you’ll find how hard it can be to tell which part of your body sings, you never should dally with any young man who does any one of the following things: tries to beat all the yellow lights; says, “Big deal!” or “So what?” more than seven times a day; ignores yellow lines in a parking lot; carries a radar detector; asks what you did with another date; has more than seven bumper stickers; drinks beer early and whiskey late; talks on a cellular phone at lunch; tunes to radio talk shows; doesn’t fasten his seat belt; knows more than God knows; wants you to change how you do your hair; spits in a polystyrene cup; doesn’t use his turn signal; wants you to change your makeup; calls your parents their given names; doesn’t know why you don’t smoke; has dirt under his fingernails; makes a threat and calls it a joke; pushes to get you to have one more; seems to have trouble staying awake; says “dago” and “wop” and words like that; swerves a car to hit a snake; sits at a table wearing a hat; has a boneless handshake. You’re going to know soon enough the ones who fail this little test. Mark them off your list at once and be very careful of all the rest.

From a recessed hollow Rumble, I unearth as a creature Conceived to be relentless. Depend on me to hunt you Until you find yourself Counting all the uncorked Nightmares you digested. I will let you know the burning Endorsed by the effort of Matches. And you will claw Yourself inward, toward a Conference of heat as the steam Within you surrenders, caves You into a cardboard scar. Even what will wreck you Are your mother’s chapped lips. Even to drip your confession Of empty rooms. I know about Your recipe of rain, your apiary Ways. Trust me to be painful.

I hate your hills white with dogwood or pink with redbud in spring as if you invented hope, as if in the middle of red clay, limestone outcroppings, and oak trees dead with fungus something slight and beautiful should make us smile. I hate the way honeysuckle drapes fences, blooms in the ditch where everyone dumps garbage; the evening air sweet with cedar and fields of burley; the way irises and buttercups mark the old dimensions of a house destroyed a hundred years ago; how a span of Queen Anne’s lace rocks the whole moon, and the sumac runs dark against the hill. I hate the drawl, the lazy voice saying I’ve been away so long I sound like I’m from nowhere; the old hand gathering snowballs or peonies or forking up an extra dish of greens, bitter, just the way I like them.

I. i saved my energy as i read, like managing held-breath underwater so i could extend my survey and not miss anything great

I. Blood We wondered if the rumors got to her. I’d seen her with that other girl behind The Stop and Shop when I was walking home from school one day. I swear, the two of them were kissing, plain as that, the grass so high it brushed their cheeks. I told my teacher so, and maybe it was her who called their folks. Before too long, it was like everyone in town had heard. We waited for them at the dime store once, where Cedric grabbed her tits and said I’ll learn you how to love how God intended it, you ugly fucking dyke. Thing was, she wasn’t ugly like you’d think. She had a certain quality, a shyness maybe, and I’d describe the way she laughed as kind of gentle. Anyway, we never saw her with that girl again. They say she got depressed— shit, at the service all of us got tearful. I got to thinking what an awful sight it was, all that red blood—it wasn’t in the papers, but I heard Melissa’s mother, who was the nurse in the Emergency that night, say how she was just covered up in blood. I can’t think how you bring yourself to cut your throat like that yourself—I asked the counselor they called in to the school, and she said something like,What better ink to write the language of the heart? I guess it proves that stuff from Bible school they say, that such a life of sin breeds misery. II. Phlegm “My brain is draining from my head,” he said as once again he blew his nose. The clock read 3 A.M.; its second hand swept slowly through another viscous minute. Dead to even nurses sticking them for new IVs, the other ones slept off their benders soundlessly. “I’m losing my intelligence,” he said, and blew. My patience waned. He thought he was the president: Dementia, KS, HIV were printed in his problem list. “And plus, I’m getting feverish.” I can’t recall his name, but I remember hating him—grim wish that he would hurry up and die. Just then, he took my hand, and kissed the back of it as though I were a princess in his foreign land. “My lady, you are beautiful,” he said, and coughed again. Unsure of what to say, my own throat burned. He said, “You can’t know what I feel.” III. Bile A gun went off and killed a little girl The day my friend was diagnosed with cancer. I walked through Central Park; a black dog snarled At squirrels chattering like they had answers. The day my friend was diagnosed with cancer I dreamed of killing someone with a knife. The squirrels, chattering, had likely answers To all my angry questions about life— A homeboy threatened someone with a knife Not far from where a cop showed off his gun, An angry answer to most questions about life. I watched the squirrels hop, the yuppies run; The cop approached the black kids with his gun. I wondered how much longer she would live; The squirrels scattered when the homeboy ran. I wondered if she’d ever been in love, I wondered who would pray for her to live, Forgive her for her anger and her weaknesses. I wondered why it hurt to fall in love. The cop tried aiming past me, towards the woods. Forgive us for our anger, for our weaknesses: Through Central Park, past the black dog’s snarls, The cop gave chase. A skirmish in the woods. The gun went off—No! shrieked a little girl. IV. Melancholy We picked at it with sticks at first, until an older kid named Samuel arrived. He dropped a heavy rock right on its skull; we watched as thick black slime began to ooze from somewhere just below its heart—or where we thought its heart should be. “Raccoon,” said someone solemnly. The landscaper— sweat gleaming, like the polished figurines my mother wouldn’t ever let me touch— regarded us with keen suspicion from across the street. We learned what it could teach; like any body’s secrets, the sublime receded toward the fact of death. I knew both sadness, and disgust in love’s untruths.

habitation, wooden crate in a nameless territory dented objects for gathering water plastic footwear two sizes too small, how the cracked heels hang over the vine suggests sweet potato but notice the cradle of thorns skiff ferry            militarized eradication’s resourcefulness speaking in a high prestige language jaundice shade of bombardment singed skin grapheme between ribs     what might be shale the mother who isn’t the father who isn’t ramshackle peony meridian bit in the mouth

Meaning “homeland” —mulk (in Kashmir) — exactly how my son demands milk. • Full-rhyme with Jhelum, the river nearest his home — my father’s “realm.” • You can’t put a leaf between written and oral; that first A, or alif. • Letters. West to east Mum’s hand would write; Dad’s script goes east to west. Received. • Invader, to some — neither here, nor there, with me — our rhododendron. • Where migrating geese pause to sleep — somewhere, halfway is this pillow’s crease. • Now we separate for the first time, on our walk, at the kissing gate. • Old English “Deor” — an exile’s lament, the past’s dark, half-opened door. • Yes, I know.Empty. But there’s just something between the p and the t. • At home in Grasmere — thin mountain paths have me back, a boy in Kashmir.