These poems were shared as a part of a Free Association Reading at City of Asylum. These readings gather Pittsburgh-area writers of all associations—established and emerging; university-affiliated and independent; novelists, poets, and essayists—to share their works in progress and newly published work. The next Free Association Reading will take place Sunday, April 12 at 3pm at City of Asylum.
My third book, small lives, is still new to me: it’s a speculative book of mostly-prose poems that present a world of remixed superhero tropes that mirror our current socio-political American landscape. So I’m always (re)thinking how to frame the book when I give a reading. For the Free Association Reading, I decided on opening with a poem that pushes the audience right into the deep end: “The Invincible Woman reunites with The Telepath” features superhuman speakers negotiating how best to liberate their people and introduces some very sci-fi and very human concerns. What follows are two more persona poems; “small lives” features The Invincible Woman, and “in blackest day, in brightest night” features The Willpower Man—who is maybe best described as a Green Lantern-type figure but without the ring. These speakers are also my attempt to collapse that allegorical space that superhumans—particularly mutants—traditionally reside in as metaphors for marginalized groups, specifically Black folks and people of color.
The Invincible Woman reunites with The Telepath
You admit to yourself that the years have been a little kinder to you than to her, and of course, since she’s a telepath, she hears what you think and gives you one of those well fuck you too looks, and because you aren’t a telepath, you can’t tell if it’s a tease or sincere. The crimefighting and years of operating on little sleep, the stares, the constant reassurance that you were one of the good ones: you want to believe you put all this behind you, but when The Telepath tells you about the children enslaved inside the artificial moons, you already know what you’ll do, how you’ll respond, even if it sounds as far-fetched as defeating a rogue sun in a series of escalating riddles (long story). It’s when The Telepath lets you touch a young girl’s mind who’s only known bondage and light that you begin to weep, wondering if humans will ever be worth a goddamn. And knowing the answer. There are thousands, The Telepath says, our people need our help. Our people. You want to ask what she means, but you know. And The Telepath being a telepath, she knows you know it too.
in blackest day, in brightest night
three boys turn blackbird, break church windows like shots fired, interrupting my midnight walk—half-drunk and singing Al Green under the artificial light of a moon. I enter the church and find the dead man by the front row pews. He’s still holding a gasoline can with a dumb look of shock on his face and three bird-sized holes through his chest. I close my eyes and can feel every shard of glass littered in the dirt and piece the windows back together, able to make Mary whole again as easily as I can take the man apart. It’s sobering work: leaving no trace, making the dead disappear. I’m fearless, not brave: an American contradiction. I love my countrymen most when their eyes roll black.
small lives
You wake from burning in a field with little urgency—even in dream the heat can’t touch you. But when you open your eyes, you kick off the sheets, touch the bare thigh pressed against your skin, but they’re deep in sweeter dreams. You could’ve saved your friend from the gun, from the rope. Could’ve snatched the bullet from air with your bare hand. But you’ve never been fast. Just strong. When the fires come, the fires come. When morning comes, you’re dead tired, brew coffee, no breakfast, head to your morning shift where the tips are decent and the regulars are quiet drunks who ask you by name for another beer and nod in thanks, give you small and constant offerings: dirty dollar bills, handful of coins, sometimes a treat—tin of cookies their adult children dropped off for the holiday, so sweet you swear you can taste every grain of sugar. Your favorite.
