She added afterward voluntarily

*

“At this point, I will do my best to answer your questions.”

*

FOOTNOTE 70: Page is torn; a final line not legible.

III.

“It’s essential that I do this workand it’s essential that I do it with my body.”

—CARRIE MAE WEEMS

Posing Nude

after Living Room, Brownsville, Brooklynby Deana Lawson

If I were to choose a man to pose nude

with, it would be the ex whose hand

in mine, I couldn’t distinguish

from my own—just as, studying

this photograph, it’s hard to tell

the male’s fingers, pressed

into a triangle, from the female’s,

decorated by acrylic nails so long

they curve like a penis might.

This particular ex anticipated

my needs like a photographer considers

sources of light. He’d wrap me in a blanket

before opening the window

to smoke a cigarette. We gazed at each other

from a certain distance.

In choosing him, I choose

the feeling of waiting naked

beneath the throw, wanting nothing

but the last dashed ember—and next

his mouth sucking

my earlobes and neck.

In Living Room, a male figure bares

a tattooed chest, cuff d jeans,

and Timberlands. Behind him, a woman

sits, propped on the radiator. Leaning back,

he rests on her right breast.

The couple stares at the camera.

I know the composition is staged—

down to the cast-off hoes, askew

on the fl or. A photograph tells truths

and lies. The couple pictured are not

lovers. Lawson asked the female subject

who she’d feel most comfortable

posing nude with: she chose a friend.

Years ago, my ex sent me nude photos.

At the time, he was living

with the woman he would later

marry. His face remains just

outside the frame. The subject

of the email read, “For Your Eyes Only.”

In the only photograph of us I’ve kept,

I’m wearing a necklace. The clasp

will soon break. Tenderness closes

my eyes into lines. He stares at me

instead of the camera; his face breaks

into laughter. That night in bed,

after the picture was taken, a mosquito

worried past his ear. My mouth rested

on his chest. He woke bitten and swollen.

Burying Seeds

for Betty Shabazz

Who, when they killed her husband, was carrying

twin girls—not in her arms, but in an armless

sea, with bits of blood as food. She covered

her daughters in the waters of her body.

She covered her daughters in the rooms

her body built, pressed against the wooden

fl or of the Audubon Ballroom. She must have

cried, as my mother did, when she stuttered, Twins?

into the paper gown of the hospital room.

The body longs for its double. Even twins

stretch long their arms toward other strangers.

The first time I visited a mosque, I was surprised

to be separated from my father and brothers.

I sat, with the women and girls, alone.

From across the aisle, I stared at the men