we have always / held a noose / of our own / making / around our / necks and it has / rubbed us / raw. there is / not enough / skin left / for you to strangle / us too.
we are tired / of hanging. / we are tired / of lynching / ourselves / with all the tongues / that we have / swallowed. all the tongues / that we have killed.
(how / can i pray / for the / peace / of Jerusalem / if i have forgotten / the language that is / curled up / in the / marrow of the words. / if i have forgotten / the way my / name / sounds / when it belongs / to me. / when it has sat / in the caverns / of my mouth / and i have not / been ashamed.)
excerpt from my current poem 'the anatomy of a black man,' unfinished.
Standing upon that shore, he thought he understood. The sand was a solace, a cushion without conditions, limitations. It crept between his toes and up through his spine, a sort of a borrowed tranquility, the kind you found when settled at the equilibrium of two elements. It held him, looking out at the lovers.
Beyond the coast, fingertips of dusk grappled at the waves, pushing ashore some waterlogged boots, presumably another serviceman’s, and a vacant bottle of liquor, consumed by drunken affairs and the tide. Once, not long ago, there were men and women settled within that ocean, more than he wanted to observe, each with salt dispersed wounds upon dusty knuckles, the watery graves of the slain victors receding with the ebb and flow of the seaweed palace. When evening fell upon them, it was given the strength to pull them home.
Wherever that may be.
Now, it was utterly empty, except for two.
He, standing.
And beside him, his companion, his own waterlogged boots, and a letter, which read, “The night once held the sea, as you will soon hold me.”
“The sunset sure is pretty,” said the other man. “Reminds me of home.”
