when he walks into my office
he’s greeted by his name
not the name I molded around my tongue
until I spat him back slack & saltless
the name that loitered corners of my mouth
with words like stop & don’t & shit & holy
but his name, his government, his mother’s honest work
how she first said it out of breath & wet everywhere
the one that makes his neck spin when he catches
a rhyme of it, when he hears chain, pain, stain
his name, not the one he gave me when I knew
his body like a worn map, latitudes & longitudes
that hold the wildest brush, what dark valleys crave teeth
where the land cries for God under slick pressure, his lonely
& impressive peaks. He handed me everything:
his most precious skin, gallons of sweat, trusted me
enough to give over his flesh, his air, his heir,
his liquid legacy, not enough to give me the power
to call to him from across the street
& not look like I’m conjuring ghost.
BY DANEZ SMITH
Danez Smith, a Cave Canem Fellow and 2-time Pushcart Nominee, works in Madison, WI, as a Student Advisor for the First Wave Program at UW-Madison. He likes tattoos, bad food, drinking Capri Suns, reading manga and good poems. His work appears or is forthcoming in PANK, Anti-, Radius, Southern Indiana Review, and other places. He thinks you look good today.
