Two Poems
Lisbeth White
Myth, Seminal
in the story the people could fly re-membered a song from the before-land when they sang it
lifted them up towards the sun and back across an oceanic ache a story more new than i-
carus but still the wrong reference point for you Dad sun already cresting your skin &
clothes dulled as brown mustard that southern air holding everyone in the same thick drone
& slow sap of blood not so much song as militant cadence your flight toward a
wilder-ness aloof air so cool & thin it kept you aloft the earth for years how
gorgeous the black of your skin made matte under a new sky overcast it caught
neither sparkle nor glare.
Fixed
all my grandmothers knew
how to sew the black & the white
both mended made quilts
of scrap some patterned brightly
into compasses similar to how pathways
were once plaited into hair & one quilt
made specially for me child consumed
by story my white grandmother appliqued
Anansi master weaver to cover my dreaming
body unable to master the patience necessary
for threading I thought this skill skipped
my generation but
that desert february
mikey & i cross the gila river to find
hot springs cradled by cairns what
we believe a respite of water
though soon realizing river water
is unregulated temper-
mental maybe wild
is another word & that paleness
is fragile here burnishing
in a flow that scalds then ices
so he cleaves to sun-burned grass & i
darker more-woman stay immersed
having long practice in how to breathe
along burn or numbness or both at
once
do you see it? i want to ask him
a near-translucent line fishtailing
present against what we always believed
to be past how our skins were constellated
centuries ago pinpricked spectres
of a long-romanced fable & yes
i want to touch him as if our light is un-
tethered sometimes pretend there is
redemption in my choosing in the shuttle
of my fingers through the sand-
colored straight of his hair
it is inescapable the weft
of our inheritance the skein of story
raveled in my limbs what
is weaving if not the crossing
of any two forces held under
tension the begging whip-
stitch i make of tenderness
to loosen to bind to finish
the edge
