Pleasure Dome. Yusef Komunyakaa

you now live

      it snows year-round.

      The pear & apple trees

      have even missed you—

      dead branches scattered

      about like war. Come closer,

      my eyes have grown night-dim.

      Across the field white boxes

      of honeybees silent as dirt,

      silent as your missent

      postcards. Evening

      sunlight’s faded my hair,

      the old stable’s slouched

      to the ground. I dug a hole

      for that calico, Cyclops,

      two years ago. Now

      milkweed & blackberries

      are keepers of the cornfield.

      That’s how the cards fall;

      & Anna, that beautiful girl

      you once loved enough

      to die over & over again for,

      now lives in New Orleans

      on both sides of Bourbon Street.

Reflections

      In the day’s mirror

      you see a tall black man.

      Fingers of gold cattail

      tremble, then you witness

      the rope dangling from

      a limb of white oak.

      It’s come to this.

      You yell his direction,

      the wind taking

      your voice away.

      You holler his mama’s name

      & he glances up at the red sky.

      You can almost

      touch what he’s thinking,

      reaching for his hand

      across the river.

      The noose pendulous

      over his head,

      you can feel him

      grow inside you,

      straining to hoist himself,

      climbing a ladder

      of air, your feet

      in his shoes.

Annabelle

      My head hangs.

      It’s all to do with

      a woman back in Alabama.

      All to do with Annabelle

      hugging every road sign

      between here & Austin, Texas.

      All to do with rope & blood.

      He’s all to do with America.

      All to do with all the No-Dick

      Joneses. Mornings shattered.

      Crickets mourn—

      sign out of genetic code.

      All to do with shadows

      kneeling in the woods.

      All to do with inherited iron maidens.

      Beg for death in the womb.

      Beg for it inside skulls—flower,

      dust, lilac perfume, cold fire.

      Gonna get lowdown tonight.

Faith Healer

      Come singing in your chains,

      Sweet Daughter. Dance, yes.

      All the light-fingered artisans

      of sacrilege, of wishful thinking

      who failed, all the goat-footed heretics

      crying for a High John the Conqueror

      root, now here you are,

      dear child, naked facing God.

      A laying on of hands. Yes,

      walk out of the grave whole.

      Blood on the thorns. Vox

      & ossa. You’re here, girl,

      to obey His design in the flesh.

      I plant a kiss where it hurts.

      Trees walk forth. Throw away

      your sticks & lean on Jesus.

      Touch my hand, touch my hand!

More Girl Than Boy

      You’ll always be my friend.

      Is that clear, Robert Lee?

      We go beyond the weighing

      of each other’s words,

      hand on a shoulder,

      go beyond the color of hair.

      Playing Down the Man on the Field

      we embraced each other before

      I discovered girls.

      You taught me a heavy love

      for jazz, how words can hurt

      more than a quick jab.

      Something there’s no word for

      saved us from the streets.

      Night’s pale horse

      rode you past common sense,

      but you made it home from Chicago.

      So many dreams dead.

      All the man-sweet gigs

      meant absolutely nothing.

      Welcome back to earth, Robert.

      You always could make that piano

      talk like somebody’s mama.

April Fools’ Day

      They had me laid out in a white

      satin casket. What the hell

      went wrong, I wanted to ask.

      Whose midnight-blue sedan

      mowed me down, what unnameable fever

      bloomed amber & colchicum

      in my brain, which doctor’s scalpel

      slipped? Did it happen

      on a rainy Saturday, blue

      Monday, Vallejo’s Thursday?

      I think I was on a balcony

      overlooking the whole thing.

      My soul sat in a black chair

      near the door, sullen

      & no-mouthed. I was fifteen

      in a star-riddled box,

      in heaven up to my eyelids.

      My skin shone like damp light,

      my face was the gray of something

      gone. They were all there.

      My mother behind an opaque veil,

      so