Neon Vernacular. Yusef Komunyakaa

takes to turn & watch a woman

      Tiptoe & pull a sheer blouse off

      The clothesline, to see her sun-lit

      Dress ride up peasant legs

      Like the last image of mercy, three

      Are drinking from the Mason jar.

      That’s the oak we planted

      The day before I left town,

      As if father & son

      Needed staking down to earth.

      If anything could now plumb

      Distance, that tree comes close,

      Recounting lost friends

      As they turn into mist.

      The woman stands in a kitchen

      Folding a man’s trousers—

      Her chin tucked to hold

      The cuffs straight.

      I’m lonely as those storytellers

      In my father’s backyard

      I shall join soon. Alone

      As they are, tilting back heads

      To let the burning ease down.

      The names of women melt

      In their mouths like hot mints,

      As if we didn’t know Old Man Pagget’s

      Stoopdown is doctored with

      Slivers of Red Devil Lye.

Salt

      Lisa, Leona, Loretta?

      She’s sipping a milkshake

      In Woolworths, dressed in

      Chiffon & fat pearls.

      She looks up at me,

      Grabs her purse

      & pulls at the hem

      Of her skirt. I want to say

       I’m just here to buy

       A box of Epsom salt

      For my grandmama’s feet.

      Lena, Lois? I feel her

      Strain to not see me.

      Lines are now etched

      At the corners of her thin,

      Pale mouth. Does she know

      I know her grandfather

      Rode a white horse

      Through Poplas Quarters

      Searching for black women,

      How he killed Indians

      & stole land with bribes

      & fake deeds? I remember

      She was seven & I was five

      When she ran up to me like a cat

      With a gypsy moth in its mouth

      & we played doctor & house

      Under the low branches of a raintree

      Encircled with red rhododendrons.

      We could pull back the leaves

      & see grandmama ironing

      At their wide window. Once

      Her mother moved so close

      To the yardman we thought they’d kiss.

      What the children of housekeepers

      & handymen knew was enough

      To stop biological clocks,

      & it’s hard now not to walk over

      & mention how her grandmother

      Killed her idiot son

      & salted him down

      In a wooden barrel.

      Note to ebook edition readers: This poem is presented first as an illustration to show the poet’s intended arrangement of the text, then as the text of the complete left column and the complete right column.

Changes; or, Reveries at a Window Overlooking a Country Road, with Two Women Talking Blues in the Kitchen

       Left column

      Joe, Gus, Sham …

       Even George Edward

       Done gone. Done

      Gone to Jesus, honey.

      Doncha mean the devil,

      Mary? Those Johnson boys

      Were only sweet talkers

      & long, tall bootleggers.

       Child, now you can count

       The men we usedta know

       On one hand. They done

      Dropped like mayflies—

       Cancer, heart trouble,

       Blood pressure, sugar,

      You name it, Eva Mae.

      Amen. Tell the truth,

      Girl. I don’t know.

      Maybe the world’s heavy

      On their shoulders. Maybe

      Too much bed hopping

      & skirt chasing

      Caught up with them.

      God don’t like ugly.

       Look at my grandson

       In there, just dragged in

       From God only knows where,

       He high tails it home

      Inbetween women troubles.

      He’s nice as a new piece

      Of silk. It’s a wonder

      Women don’t stick to him

      Like white on rice.

       It’s a fast world

      Out there, honey.

      They go all kinda ways.

       Just buried John Henry

       With that old guitar

      Cradled in his arms.

       Over on Fourth Street

       Singing ’bout hell hounds

      When he dropped dead.

       You heard ’bout Jack

       Right? He just tilted over

      In prayer meeting.

       The good & the bad go

      Into