Some days he’d slowly spin his dizzying
street corner arc, a circle he swore
was defined by angels. And they is black
ones, too! he’d declare, never daring
beyond heavenly prescribed boundary.
Fireman wrecked Otis Redding lyric,
spewed misaligned gospel, regaled us
with his tales of recent visits to a hell
that was preparing to receive us all.
Sizzling Chi days, he’d whirl furious,
shower the one or two feet beyond
himself with stinging spittle, preach
and pontificate through the blur. After
sudden stops, he’d lean against the bus
shelter to undizzy. Lawd ham mercy, he’d
moan, while the world turned upside
in and Mama and I cut a road around him.
Long time before, Fireman had raced
face-first into a blaze trying to save
something belonged to him, a dog
or a woman or some other piece of life,
and an explosion had blown his face
straight back, you know, sometimes
I hate words, they don’t know how
to say anything, imagine that I am digging
my fingers deep into the clay of my face
and pulling, watch how my eyes get,
how they can’t stop seeing the last thing
they saw, his eyelashes gone, eyebrows
gone, everything on his head headed
backwards, like it was trying to get
away from him. Maps all over his skin,
maps for little lost people, everybody
this way, back, his nose smashed flat
and headed back, back, smoke-dimmed
teeth tiny tiles in his mouth, can’t pull
bulbous pink lips together because
of skin fused to skin, no end to that stiff
horrible smile. In my dream, I rest the full
of my hand against his fuming torso,
daring it a place there, chanting ice.
Not knowing this sudden love, Fireman bolts
and resumes his dance, whirling, waiting,
charred limbs outstretched. From his
monstrous mouth, wrong Otis strains
to be louder than that November day,
that bone heat, those shattering windows.