Jason Reynolds's Blog, page 3

Day 10 of 30

FRIENDS THROUGH SCREENS

i talked to my friends

through screens today.

not screen doors like grandma’s in

south carolina, the one she’d tell us

not to slam, gravy sifting through

metal mesh like delicious spirit.

but kinda.

and not smoke screens

either, riot clouds

where we listen for

directions from us screaming

running from them, this way,

i’m here, over here, this way.

but kinda.

and not television screens

where we teleport to cartoon

and laugh track and someone

else’s life or life-like role

where doctor’s are perfect

except for an occasional affair.

but kinda.

i talked to my friends

through screens today.

turns out it’s true that zeroes

and ones can make a million

smiles, take it from me, but buffering

almost sent me into panic. Well, not panic.

but kinda.

Day 9 of 30

THE MORNING OF DR. KING’S FUNERAL, APRIL 9th, 1968

Coretta wore a black suit,

a pill-box hat with veil,

and skin sewn by God,

and, my God, somehow

had to pestle the pain

and steady her hand

enough to part and pony

and bow her baby girl’s

hair without tears

turning it to static.

Day 8 of 30

CURRENT

today i took a walk around the block

to deliver a piece of mail that was

mistakenly left on my doorstep.

right number. wrong street. big sun.

i turned left down D. people sat

on their front steps. a white guy with

an adorable mutt, an older black woman

her hair a half-inch frizz like my

mother’s, a child playing in the sprinkler.

and in an instant, an instinct,

like a spring-loaded moment, I waved.

the white guy waved back, his dog licking

its own nose. the older black lady pressed her

palm my way, tickled the air, couldn’t help

but grin at me, as I smiled at the kid who was

too busy laughing in the water to acknowledge

a wave. but there was a wave. a wave

that momentarily pushed us back to shore.

and just for a few seconds, just for the time

it took for a hand to go up and down, just for

the time being, we all stopped holding our breath

Day 7 of 30

RANDOM THOUGHT

today, i stared out the window

and watched the sidewalk dry after

a downpour. something refreshing,

reassuring even, about witnessing

a strip of rock i step on daily, this

runway for minor major moments, like coffee,

be discolored, like coffee, by rain, first in

spots then splotches then swaths then sheets,

then slowly return to itself in the searing sun,

and though this has nothing to do with sidewalks

and rain, all i could think about was how maybe

we, built of rock and wall, should learn to watch

paint dry. maybe it would benefit us to

bear witness to the tedium of transformation

Day 6 of 30

ONE OF THOSE DAYS

there are days when

poems dont want to be written,

and people dont want to try

to find metaphor and analogy

for sleep and sex and salvation.

there are days when

people dont need to be poems,

but instead stick figures

on construction paper,

flat and perfect, crayon crude.

Day 5 of 30

SUNDAY QUARANTINE

something about the strange way it serves

as beginning and end, cross of rest and ready,

or maybe because it lives as praise in the throat

of almost every history and is the namesake

of every god,

or because it’s the only time breakfast

tastes like breakfast and not

like jet fuel, and this cheap sofa

actually seems soft enough to break the bottom

half of my face into a smile, even in exile.

Day 4 of 30

SIGNS (working title)

you used to track wet

prints of shoe sole, intricate

chevron across the hardwood

and when i’d repay the visit

i’d hang my wet socks

over your shower bar

there was never any rain

but always water and

for us always liquor or

something to make us laugh and

joke about who we’d never want to be

trapped on a deserted island with

Day 3 of 30

YOU KNOW YOU KNOW YOU KNOW for Bill Withers

my mother always said he sang like he wasn’t

no light-skinned man. said his voice walked

a flat line, no nonsense, no running, just

a stand and deliver, sermonic, part your hair

kind of tone, like that west virginia coal

caught in his throat and blacked it up something

serious. up there strumming like a folkie,

but he ain’t no folkie. he our folk, for sure.

Day 2 of 30

SAP

all my life my father has been a hundred-year-old

tree, even in his thirties and forties. always

sturdy and thick-barked and impervious to sway.

his limbs never swinging. his leaves ever brown

and dry. an agro-alarm. he’s always needed to hear

when people are coming close. he’s always needed them

to know whose ground they walk on. whose roots they

stand on. his life a perpetual fall, brisk and

beautiful but not without signs of winter.

and recently, we that used to nest in him,

we his chickadees, who taloned his harsh and hung

upside down and pecked at his bark for years,

searching for sweet, have discovered sap.

it is sticky, and we are concerned

about what has gotten into him.

And…we’re back! It’s National Poetry Month AGAIN! Day 1 of 30

Before we begin, I don’t want to pretend like I’m not being emotionally and mentally affected by all that’s going on in our world. But this is the only way I know how to process. So, I can’t promise you these all wont be about the coronavirus. I’m hoping they won’t. That being said…let’s get to it.

 MODEL

my mother hasn’t seen my face in

some time and it’s turning our

nightly phone calls into painting sessions

where she tries to see if she can

catch the curve of my jaw, the worry

weight in my wooly cheeks, the new

growth and extra half inch of hair,

the one that stress broke off.

I tell her I haven’t been drinking or

at least I haven’t been drinking much,

and she thins the paint around my stomach,

turpentines the pot from my belly and

says, that’s good to hear.

I say I’ve gone to get groceries

and she dabs her brush in the black

and does a wash which will suffice

for the t-shirt she knows so well

and the jeans and sneakers,

and the hoodie she used to be

concerned about, all

from the timbre of my voice.

It’s a rough. An idea. But still something

to hang on the wall and marvel at until morning.

But before we say goodnight, before she

rinses the brushes, I say again,

with great uncertainty,

I’m alright, but are you?

And I know she hears the fear in my voice

I know she’s painted the furrow

that seems to go on forever, but instead

of yes or no, she says,

you haven’t seen your mother’s face in

some time and have forgotten

what you look like.