Many thanks to the many friends and colleagues who made this collection possible through creative, logistical, and emotional support including Reginald Dwayne Betts, Tommye Blount, Veronica Castrillon, Nandi Comer, Kahn Davison, francine j. harris, Khalid El-Hakim, Quincee Herbert, Melissa Roberts, Anna Saini, Erin Shaughnessy, Laura Swearingen-Steadwell, Scheherazade Washington, Jasmin White, and Team Turgid: Roger Bonair-Agard, J.W. Basilo, Tom Budday, and Karrie Waarala.

Thank you to the organizations that fed me in multiple ways: The Stadler Center for Poetry, Shara McCallum, Andrew Ciotola, and G.C. Waldrep; Terry Blackhawk and the Inside Out Literary Arts Project; the entire Cave Canem family, Alison Meyers, Toi Derricotte, and Cornelius Eady; Ross White and the Daily Grind Writing Series; Callaloo Writers Workshop, Dr. Charles Henry Rowell and Gregory Pardlo; Poetry Slam Incorporated and the poetry slam community; Lynn Procope and the NYC LouderArts Project; Team Fucking Nuance; Michael Collier and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference; the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Debra Allbery, and Amy Grimm; Alice James Books, Meg Willing, Carey Salerno, and the cooperative board for believing in this collection and showing that belief at every turn.

Thank you to Vievee Francis and Matthew Olzmann, the two hardest working and most generous poets I know. They may have done more for my writing life than even I have.

Special thanks to the careful eyes that gave these poems no quarter: Alan Shapiro who guided me in laying the foundation that became Hum, Gabrielle Calvocoressi for challenging me on form and endings, C. Dale Young for the revision philosophy and thoughts on organic ordering, Rick Barot for the title and his macro to micro insights, Catherine Barnett for her fresh perspective and finishing touches, Carl Phillips for his guidance and big picture advice, and Tarfia Faizullah, the first, last, and closest reader of every kobita.

And thanks especially to the May family for making me the rare poet whose craft is respected and encouraged by all of his kin: my father Claude, mother Sytoria, brothers Jabari and Jared, and my twin sister Danielle, who believed in my poetry before I even began writing it.

Dedication

Dedicated to the interior lives of Detroiters and the memory of David Blair

Still Life

Still Life

Boy with roof shingles

duct taped to shins and forearms

threading barbed wire through pant loops.

Boy with a safety pin-clasped

bath towel of a cape

tucking exacto knife into sock.

Boy with rocks. Boy

with a metal grate for a shield.

Boy with a guardian

daemon and flawless skin.

Boy in the shuttered district,

a factory of shattered vials,

green and brown glass.

Boy with a tiny voice

and crooked cursive handwriting,

with bent nails in a pouch,

metal flashing scavenged in bits,

with half a neck tie

tied around the brow

pushing a fire door wide.

Boy with a boy living

in his head kept quiet

by humming a lullaby

of static and burble.

The boy in the boy’s head