~for Joseph J. Freeman and Richard P. Williams
~after Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series & Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns
~I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
Stanley Kunitz, from “The Layers”
I.
At night, my father played piano & sang, his voice our raft on a quiet lake, an island of gentleness & because gentleness is a choice, I know something—, I have told you something essential about my father & the history of black people in America. & because he looked at my mother & me as if we were divine, brilliant, bright children of god & because if gesture & spirit have weight, my father’s equaled two thousand blooming peonies, I have told you something about faith & the history of black people in America.
Scientists are full of news these days: We are rotting fruit lain to ground. In each breath we inhale thousands of humans collected on the tongues of leaves, in the pink eyes of peonies, on the powdery backs of pollen. Exhaled. With each draw, a millennium of history enters us & we cannot control, can only harness whom or what we host. Our traumas, the bright blue mysticisms & burnt orange murmurs, our joys & muddled currencies are archived in genetic code.
I am not of my father’s blood but am of my father, which is also the history of black people in America.
At my 6th birthday party, the parents drank martinis & sangria in white linen & silk as we played on the Slip-n-Slide while the desolate beast next door snarled & snapped through the fence, our jubilation magnifying his rage. He leapt & whipped into an ever-reddening frenzy. & because pain will out, & because hatred will out, & because my father sensed a shift in the air because he deeply believed my mother & me divine & the faithful have second sight, & because some Alabama-born malice had taught him a lesson to do with mercilessness, the way danger wets the wind, my father tore into the house emerging with a finger on a gun’s trigger. He stood sentinel the rest of the day, gun slack on his thigh, squinting at the feverishness at the fence—as we leapt & shrieked & ate cake.
This is what I was trying to explain to Avi when I sent him that book about the black migration from the American south. I was trying to say: we have cause to care for & track our wounds. To be anything other than enraged or dead is to be a success if black in America. To become a refuge, a safe harbor is to be a miracle if black in America.
His ailing father listened quietly as Avi read aloud passages about the vicious hand of the south & burnings & bodies & swinging, cold chicken & packed trains, escapees casting towards a northern brink they could not fully understand, away from an ending they did. & because hatred will out & because we cannot control whom or what we host. & because his father is a holocaust survivor, in a moment of lucidity, he asked sadly: “Son, why do you insist on reading me my story?”
So we, the Jewish son and African daughter, mouths bursting & soured with flowers & fauna, rotting leaves & peonies & men banging at the midnight door, stood as an ecosystem of gas & fire, double helixes & light, the story of-, the choices of-, our fathers knotted between us. & because I wanted to touch his face as my own, & because I felt his skin shudder as my own, understood his father’s stubble as my own & because what are we if not our brothers? & because there has always been binding & burning & escaping & enduring & because I know no better way to understand the history of humans than to tell you the story of my father’s choice to be a raft on a lake, which, no matter what more you might be told, is the true story of black thought, black life, black people in America.
II.
At night my father sang & because in each breath we inhale thousands of humans on the powdery backs of pollen I have told you something essential & because he looked at my mother & me as if we were divine & because we are really only rotting fruit lain to ground & because if gesture & spirit have weight my father’s equaled two thousand blooming peonies & at my 6th birthday party the beast next door snarled & snapped through the fence & because our mysticisms & currencies are archived genetic code & because hatred outs & because some malice had taught him mercilessness my father emerged from the house a gun’s trigger & for the rest of the day stood as a safe harbor glaring feverishness down as we leapt & shrieked & then Avi read passages from the book & because we cannot control whom or what we host & because Avi’s father is a holocaust survivor he asked “Son, why?” we stood as an ecosystem of double helixes Alabama & Holocaust knotted between us & because I wanted to touch his face as my own as if we were divine & because I felt his skin shudder as my own as if we were brilliant bright gods understood his father’s stubble as my own & because what are we? & because there has always been binding & escaping & enduring & because I am not of my father’s blood but am of Avi’s father I know no better way to explain the history of humans than to tell you at night my father played piano & sang his voice our raft on a quiet lake an island of gentleness & gentleness is a choice is a miracle in America.
from The American Poetry Review