by DYLAN RICHMOND
I
Among fifty snowed in stars,
The only moving thing
Was the heart of the blackboy.
II
To be of double consciousnesses,
Like a blackboy,
In which there can be many boys, but both black.
III
The blackboy’s wail in autumn winds.
It was drowned out by white noise.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackboy
Are two and three fifths.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The joke of inflictions
Or the joke of innuendoes,
The bullet whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles barred the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackboy
you found distorted there.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
A cause you choose not to decipher.
VII
People of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackboy
Is tasting himself
In the mouth of the sun?
VIII
You say you know accents,
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackboy is involved
In what you do not, cannot know.
IX
When the blackboy swam out of sight,
It marked the stretch
Of one of many oceans.
X
At the thought of blackboys
Dancing in a blue light,
The gods of you and me
Would cry out sharply.
XI
You rode through Connecticut
In a glass train.
Once, a fear pierced you,
In that you mistook
Your own gloves
For the hands of blackboys.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackboy, mourning, must be.
XIII
He was mourning all night.
It was sunrise
And the sun was going to keep rising.
The blackboy rose, too,
With his black-limbs.
From Issue 12
DYLAN RICHMOND is a dancer and poet based in New York City. He has presented work at Yale University, UCLA, Bowdoin College, the Grand Ole Opry, Queen Mary University of London, and at the African Diasporic Dance Summit at Connecticut College. Dylan is also published in From Root to Seed: Black, Brown, and Indigenous Poets Write the Northeast. Currently, Dylan manages for New York Live Arts and the Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Dance Company.