Poem of the Day
The People’s History of 1998
By Gbenga Adesina
The Yangtze River in China lost its nerve / and wanted vengeance.
The Yangtze River in China lost its nerve / and wanted vengeance.
When they were wild
When they were not yet human
When they could have been anything,
Trees, good new trees, trees that are stitched
into tinware by the sun.
Tanned arms sweep around a pin;
We scatter rainbow
Markers on the rug
And make a diagram of people in the cast.
The troubled entrepreneurs of evening—
the palm-readers, the Mexican bracelet salesmen,
the girl who dances on a sheet of tin—
These are the objects, the touchable—table, refrigerator, chair,
grease-splattered whiteness and woodgrain.
And here is the sound of the baby muttering and cooing,
A day too large for the summer, standing up
out of the bus lanes, puzzled on its face
like the miniaturist who becomes famous
The faintly digital click of the overhead fan
stroking what was left of the dark
had finally given way to a rooster alarm
Then one day the gray rags vanish
and the sweet wind rattles her sash.
Her secrets bloom hot. I’m wild for everything.
that feeling
of resignation
that comes
The mind may not mind death. It means
at last letting go, the inevitable
capitulation. After all, it’s tired,