mapping departure
routes? The Daylight Boys
haunt these footsteps tuned
to rap & butterfly
knives that grow into
Saturday-night specials
tucked inside jackets
ensigned with Suns, Bulls …
Ice. Ecstasy. Crack.
Here’s another young,
bad, good-looking one
walking on air solid
as the Memnon Colossi,
& may not be here at dawn.
Somewhere
I was on the corner
when she paused
at the crosswalk.
If a cobra’s in a coil, it can’t
take back its strike. Her
purse was already in my hands
when the first punch landed.
She kept saying, “You won’t
take nobody else’s money no
more.” Her voice was like
Mama’s. I couldn’t
break free. Women & kids
multiplied before me.
At least thirty or forty.
Everywhere. Kicking & biting.
I kept saying, “I give
up.” But they wouldn’t
stop aiming at my balls.
The sky tumbled. I was a
star in a late-night movie
where all these swallows—no,
a throng of boys swooped
like a cloud of birds
& devoured a man
on a lonely beach
in Mexico, & somewhere
outside Acapulco that damn
squad of sunflowers
blazed up around me.
What I heard the stupid
paramedics say scared me
to death, as the bastards
worked on my fucking heart.
Never Land
I don’t wish you were one
of The Jackson Five
tonight, only you were
still inside yourself
unchanged by the vampire
moonlight. So eager to
play The Other,
did you forget
Dracula was singled out
because of his dark hair
& olive skin? After
you became your cover,
tabloid headlines
grafted your name
to a blond boy’s.
The personals bled
through newsprint,
across your face. Victor
Frankenstein knew we must
love our inventions. Now,
maybe skin will start to grow
over the lies & subtract
everything that under-
mines nose & cheekbone.
You could tell us if
loneliness is what
makes the sparrow sing.
Michael, don’t care
what the makeup
artist says, you know
your sperm will never
reproduce that face
in the oval mirror.
Pepper
If you were alive, Art
Pepper, I’d collar you
as you stepped off the
bandstand. Last notes
of “Softly as a Morning
Sunrise” fall between us,
a hint of Africa
still inside your alto.
Someone wants to blame
your tongue on drugs: “If I
found out some white broad
was married to a black guy
I’d rave at her in games
& call her tramp, slut,
whore.” Did you steal
the Phoenix’s ashes
listening to Bird?
I’m angry for loving
your horn these years,
wooed by the monkey
riding you in L.A.
as if changes in “Mambo
