Neon Vernacular. Yusef Komunyakaa

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      As if a rainbow edged underneath;

      Centipedes & unnameable

      Insects sank into loam

      With a flutter. My first lesson:

      Beauty can bite. I wanted

      To touch scarlet pincers—

      Warriors that never zapped

      Their own kind, crowded into

      A city cut off from the penalty

      Of sunlight. The whole rotting

      Determinism just an inch beneath

      The soil. Into the darkness

      Of opposites, like those racial

      Fears of the night, I am drawn again,

      To conception & birth. Roots of ivy

      & farkleberry can hold a board down

      To the ground. In this cellular dirt

      & calligraphy of excrement,

      Light is a god-headed

      Law & weapon.

A Good Memory

       1 Wild Fruit

      I came to a bounty of black lustre

      One July afternoon, & didn’t

      Call my brothers. A silence

      Coaxed me up into oak branches

      Woodpeckers had weakened.

      But they held there, braced

      By a hundred years of vines

      Strong & thick

      Enough to hang a man.

      The pulpy, sweet musk

      Exploded in my mouth

      As each indigo skin collapsed.

      Muscadines hung in clusters,

      & I forgot about jellybeans,

      Honeycomb, & chocolate kisses.

      I could almost walk on air

      The first time I couldn’t get enough

      Of something, & in that embrace

      Of branches I learned the first

      Secret I could keep.

      2 Meat

      Folk magic hoodooed us

      Till the varmints didn’t taste bitter

      Or wild. We boys & girls

      Knew how to cut away musk glands

      Behind their legs. Good

      With knives, we believed

      We weren’t poor. A raccoon

      Would stand on its hind legs

      & fight off dogs. Rabbits

      Learned how to make hunters

      Shoot at spiders when headlighting.

      A squirrel played trickster

      On the low branches

      Till we were our own targets.

      We garnished the animal’s

      Spirit with red pepper

      & basil as it cooked

      With a halo of herbs

      & sweet potatoes. Served

      On chipped, hand-me-down

      Willow-patterned plates.

      We weren’t poor.

      If we didn’t say

      Grace, we were slapped

      At the table. Sometimes

      We weighed the bullet

      In our hands, tossing it left

      To right, wondering if it was

      Worth more than the kill.

      3 Breaking Ground

      I told Mister Washington

      You couldn’t find a white man

      With his name. But after forty years

      At the tung oil mill, coughing up old dust,

      He only talked butter beans & okra.

      He moved like a sand crab.

      Born half-broken, he’d say

       If I didn’t have this bad leg

      I’d break ground to kingdom come.

      He only stood erect behind

      The plow, grunting against

      The blade’s slow cut.

      Sometimes he’d just rock

      Back & forth, in one place,

      Hardly moving an inch

      Till the dirt gave away

      & he stumbled a foot forward,

      Humming “Amazing Grace.”

      Like good & evil woven

      Into each other, rutabagas

      & Irish potatoes came out

      Worm-eaten. His snow peas

      Melted on tender stems,

      Impersonating failure.

      To prove that earth can heal,

      He’d throw his body

      Against the plow СКАЧАТЬ