After Another Country
Some dark of us dark,
The ones like me, walk
Around looking for
A building or a bridge.
We mumble and pull
At our lips, convinced,
Until we see how far
Down the distance.
We arrive to leave,
Calling ourselves
Cowards, but not you,
Rufus. You make it
To the George Washington—
Bold as an officer of the law
With the right to direct traffic
When all the stoplights
Are out—and you leap
Dirty against the whiteness
Of the sky to your escape
Through the whiteness
Of the water.
Dear Whiteness
Come, love, come lie down, love, with me
In this king-size bed where we go numb
For one another letting sleep take us into
Ease, a slumber made only when I hold
You or you hold me so close I have no idea
Where I begin—where do you end?—where you
Tell me lies. Tell me sweet little lies
About what I mean to you when
I’ve labored all day and wish to come
Home like a war hero who lost an arm.
That’s how I fight to win you, to gain
Ground you are welcome to divide
And name. See how this mouth opens
To speak what language you allow me
With the threat of my head cradled safe.
Tell me lies. Tell me sweet little lies
Of what you require, intimacy so industrious
That when I wake to brush you from my own
Teeth I see you in the mirror. I won’t stay
Too long. When you look in that mirror, it
Will be clean. You’ll be content
Seeing only yourself. Was I ever there?
Tell me lies. Tell me. Tell me lies.
Monotheism
Some people need religion. Me?
I’ve got my long black hair. I twist
The roots and braid it tight. You’re
My villain. You’re a hard father, from
Behind, it whines, tied and tucked,
Untouchable. Then comes
The night— Before I carry my
Mane to bed with me, I sit us
In front of the vanity. Undo. Un-
Wind. Finally your fingers, it says
Near my ear, Your fingers. Your
Whole hands. No one’s but yours.
Duplex: Cento
My last love drove a burgundy car,
Color of a rash, a symptom of sickness.
We were the symptoms, the road our sickness:
None of our fights ended where they began.
None of the beaten end where they begin.
Any man in love can cause a messy corpse,
But I didn’t want to leave a messy corpse
Obliterated in some lilied field,
Stench obliterating lilies of the field,
The murderer, young and unreasonable.
He was so young, so unreasonable,
Steadfast and awful, tall as my father.
Steadfast and awful, my tall father
Was my first love. He drove a burgundy car.
Jericho Brown is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was named one of the best of the year by Library Journal, Coldfront, and the Academy of American Poets. He is also the author of the collection The Tradition, which will be published this spring. His poems have appeared in Buzzfeed, The New York Times, The New Yorker, TIME Magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry anthology. He is an associate professor and the director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory.