Cobwebs & mandrake. Bride holding the skull
of her husband. When Diego said, Where is the gown
you wore at the wedding, she wept pulling it from a trunk.
But it was the color he wanted. The white of skirts
on flower vendors. Of calla lilies. She knows
Diego makes love to all the women he paints,
even Frida’s sister. (What color is the line
between greed & passion?) When Diego asks,
will she lift the gown & sprawl like a puddle of light,
the brush dragging a silver trail along her thigh?
Will the skull rolling into the hall sound
like a moaning man? This afternoon in the museum,
among cobwebs & a plant that screams when pulled
from the ground, she smiles as if her secret is a good one.
This we learn is how to be a bride with no husband,
how to hold a skull upon the lap like a purse
of freedom. In 1939, she smiles at Diego, his gut large
enough to hold a harem of skulls, a woman-sized fetus.
(She has seen Frida walking to the market
in his shadow.) Her smile is a wall rising out of his colors,
beauty he swallows then returns, ruins then restores . . .

FOR ROBERT HAYDEN

FOR ROBERT HAYDEN

Did your father come home after fighting
through the week at work? Did the sweat change
to salt in his ears? Was that bitter white

grain the only music he’d hear? Is this why
you were quiet when other poets sang
of the black man’s beauty? Is this why

you choked on the tonsil of Negro Duty?
Were there as many offices for pain
as love? Should a black man never be shy?

Was your father a mountain twenty
shovels couldn’t bury? Was he a train
leaving a lone column of smoke? Was he

a black magnolia singing at your feet?
Was he a blackjack smashed against your throat?

BROKEN DANGERFIELDNEWBYVILLANELLE

BROKEN DANGERFIELDNEWBYVILLANELLE

My voice made them shiver;
My voice called starlings from the trees
So a farmer pried loose my teeth

And stomped them into the dirt.
But I heard what I could not speak:
Gasps, a dog barking, a church bell.

They said shit hung from my lips;
They said my mouth was full of piss.
A carpenter sawed off my ears,

But I saw what I could not hear:
Boot strings, a church steeple, houseflies.
A butcher pried loose my eyes

And crushed them in his fist.
But I thought what I could not see:
My wife somewhere cradling our child.

A blacksmith cracked open my skull
And scooped my memory from its shell.
But I sensed my own beauty;
What I could not remember, I felt—

WILLIAM H. JOHNSON

WILLIAM H. JOHNSON

—a letter home, circa 1933

Forgive this letter covered in paint.
There are no rags around me.
I cannot tell you where I am, but where I ain’t.

I am not where the color of my skin taints
Everything. Remember the way folks looked at me
When I walked through Florence covered in paint?