FLORIDA

FLORIDA

In the black-tiled room,
in the slime-wet apron, I am slicing,

I am fingering tiny muscles
of the soul from the fish,

I am doing as I was told,
dropping gut & bile in the bucket with the head

where the eyes are like marbles
in a doll’s face. I am inside the fish

thinking of my cousin, Noon Pie’s hips
in the walk-in closet, the sex of cloth

against cloth below Aunt Betty-Joe’s
yellowing lace, Lonzo’s suits of sharkskin,

their stale wedding bouquet.
I know fish love what blossoms

because they’re drawn to the propeller’s
bloom. I know fish nibble the corpse

til nothing remains, but bone.
I am thinking of Lonzo’s hand cuffed

around my wrist. You cut off the head
like this . . . I am made to tremble

by a boom box’s treble & bass,
B-boys in swimming trunks & shades

as they walk to the neighborhood lake.
All day they will splash & swallow

the water’s charm, as I swallow & splash
through heat, dreaming of my home

too many miles from this state
shaped like a leg gnawed up to the knee.

THE FLAME

THE FLAME

Her letters doused, the sticky sap
of Dear Baby on my tongue,
her apology, the electric twine of ink
all about to be burned, I crouch
as embers rise bright as maggots
into my face. I am in the back yard
looking at the pyramid of roofs,
the glinting antennae, I am looking at vines
of cable & telephone lines hatched over head
where the night sky seems untouchable,
a place I could only trespass.
I am sixteen, age of blood, age the bravest,
meaning the most desperate, of my crew struts
into class wearing no underwear
& spends the whole day proving it.
I have done this. Felt the rough blue pull
of denim & later, the teeth of sweat,
the embarrassment spawned by too much passion.
Now, only this flame will do.
The neighbors wonder, Who is burning leaves
this time of night? Or worse, Who is weeping
for the burning of leaves? This is called a pyre.
Long ago a tribe would gather articles of the dead:
the socks & Halloween masks, crayons & the child
like a sack of wind. They gathered
whatever was flammable & gave it wings.
They knew what wasn’t flammable
burned the most. I am learning this tonight.
I am learning the name of all the ballads
& stupid movies, all the world’s crushed moping.
And still, none of it will do. The flames gasp,
the pages transformed to what everything becomes
by the end. Tomorrow, perhaps no one will know
if these ashes were leaves or wood, cloth, skin.

ODETO STONE

ODETO STONE

My child is old as stone
Which does not budge from dirt

Though he will not wake me
Half-naked from my dreams

Though we will not wait for a yellow bus
To climb the hill at dawn