Jericho Brown

Cosmos. Baby’s Breath.

Thank God. It can’t get much darker than that.

Gratitude is black—
Black as a hero returning from war to a country that banked on his death.

That side of the family is darker. I should be grateful. So I will be—

Slick stick figures like men with low-cut fades,
Short but standing straight
Because we bent them into weak display.

We mumble and pull
At our lips, convinced,

A poem is a gesture toward home.
It makes dark demands I call my own.

Memory makes demands darker than my own:
My last love drove a burgundy car.

Light rain hits easy but leaves its own mark
Like the sound of a mother weeping again.

Useless now that I know everyone moves the same
Whether moving in tears or moving
To punch my face. A crape myrtle is
A crape myrtle. Three is a family. It is winter. They are bare.