Let’s say we begin and end with questions, and putting aside for now those associated with being born: my father in his bed is a wrinkle among thin blankets. His breath an engine turning over. His arms go up sometimes in his ungentle sleep as if to protect the eggshell of his skull, as if he is hiding under the desk of the world and the sirens have begun to blare. Dear Gravity, I cannot say he doesn’t float, despite this heaviness. He drifts in a half sleep, speaks in a half tongue; such dreaming only the dying can do. The meat he asks back to his bare bones won’t come from soup or cups of pudding cajoled into the red gap of his open mouth, which has gone loose as a broken hinge. One one one more only, this the very last, the nurse says, spoon tilted, her own hips straight and solid, someone so planted in the world it would take a violence to uproot her. My father both sinks and soars in his dry, thin paper skin. His lips are red and dark and rough; despite such poverty of moisture, they demark the entrance to the watery cave of the body. The lexicon of questions is poor in relation to that vast tunnel, the red and slightly pulsing tunnel beyond the ivory markers of his rotted porcelain teeth. Where in that disintegrating labyrinth is the him that is? Not the lights that flash and blink on the body’s dashboard, not the automatic systems that stutter along until they don’t. Not even the voice that sometimes booms out orders surprising the muddle of confounded mutters, the litany of small refusals whispered hoarsely in the direction of the lamp’s plastic-wrapped shade. What is left, Gravity, after the body has been turned to ashes and after his imprint and stink have been replaced by someone else’s and after, even, the words have been spoken among friends and family and the catered panini cleared finally away, after the urn has been placed on a mantel, where will he be? Not anywhere anyone’s hand can reach for his own, which rests yet on the blanket and through which runs a live blue vein like a mountain range at dusk seen from very far above.
"A poetic exploration of the wounds the US has inflicted on its indigenous people, written by one of the few remaining speakers of the Mojave language, has made the shortlist for the prestigious Forward prize for best collection." Other poets joining Natalie Diaz on the shortlist include David Morley, Vicki Feaver, Pascale Petit and Caroline Bird.
Resources for Supporting and Uplifting the Black Community
Coming to the Table: "Working together to create a just and truthful society that acknowledges and seeks to heal from the racial wounds of the past, from slavery and the many forms of racism it spawned.
Required Reading on Race: Black-owned indie bookstores recommend readings "which discuss racism, and the violent and complicated history between black and white people in America, using inventive storylines and moving prose."
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund: "Through litigation, advocacy, and public education, LDF seeks structural changes to expand democracy, eliminate disparities, and achieve racial justice in a society that fulfills the promise of equality for all Americans."
Poetry Daily stands with the Black community. We oppose racism, oppression, and police brutality. We will continue to amplify diverse voices in the poetry world. Black Lives Matter.
"Yes—I did feel as if the top of my head had been taken off. I was desperately goth at the time, and those lines were the gothiest thing I had ever heard. And hearing them re-configured my ideas about what a poem could be. No roses! No violets! That day, I wrote eight poems. Thankfully, I don’t remember any of them—except the very first one."
