for Thapelo Makutle
All throat now already brighter than the stars.
I could hold you in my song. Sotto voce, tremble
against me: a breeze slips in, cools my blood
to garnet bed stained with stones, cold and finally
useless I
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When they finished burying me, what was left of me sent up a demand like a hand blooming in the fresh dirt: When I’m back, I want a body like a slash of lightning. If they heard me, I couldn’t hear their answers. But silence has never stopped me from praying. Alive, how many nights did I spend knelt between the knees of gods and men begging for rain, rent, and reasons to remain? A body like the sky seeking justice. A body like light reaching right down into the field where you thought you could hide from me. They’ve taken their bald rose stems and black umbrellas home now. They’ve cooked for one another, sung hymns as if they didn’t prefer jazz. I’m just a memory now. But history has never stopped me from praying.
Copyright © 2018 by Saeed Jones. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 28, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
Copyright © 2018 by Saeed Jones. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 28, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
Saeed Jones is the author of Prelude to Bruise (Coffee House Press, 2014), a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and winner of the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry.