The Best American Poetry 2021 Read online

  can you—his saying, there,

  that’s a mystery.

  And you said the word as if it were new ground to stand on,

  you uttered it to stand on it—

  mystery. Yes, mystery he said. Yes mystery you said

  talking to it now as it

  took its step out of the shadow into the clearing and there you

  saw it in the so-called in-

  visible. Then when the wave broke the first time on what had seemed

  terra firma and you knew as he held your hand

  insisting you hold your ground

  that there was foreclosure,

  there was oldness of a kind you couldn’t fathom, and there was the terrifying

  suddenness of the

  now. Your mind felt for it. It felt the reach from an elsewhere and a dip which cannot hold.

  Splash went the wave.

  Your feet stood fast.

  Your hem was touched.

  We saw you watch.

  We felt your hand grip

  but not to move back.

  Can you find that now now, wherever you are, even a candle would be a gift I know

  from there. Shhh he said so you could hear it. Pity he said

  not knowing to whom.

  Pity you said, laughing, pity pity, and that was the day of

  your being carried out

  in spite of your cold, wrapped tight, to see the evening star. And he pointed. And you

  looked up. And you took a breath I hear even now as I go

  out—the inhalation of dark secrecy fear distance the reach into an almost-touching

  of silence, of the thing that has no neighbors and never will, in you,

  the center of which is noise,

  the outermost a freezing you can travel his arm to with your gaze

  till it’s there. The real. A star. The earth is your

  home. No matter what they tell you now and what program you input via your chip or port

  or faster yet, no, no, in that now I am not there

  in, to point, to take your now large hand and say

  look, look through these fronds,

  hold your breath,

  the deer hiding from the hunter is right here in our field,

  it knows we are too,

  it does not fear us.

  Be still. Wait. And we, we

  will be left behind.

  Except just now. If you still once.

  That you might remember.

  Now. Remember now.

  from The New Yorker

  RACHEL ELIZA GRIFFITHS Hunger

  Weeks after her death I came to the garden window

  to marvel at sudden pale feathers catching, scattering

  past the rainy glass. I looked for magic everywhere.

  Signs from the afterlife that I was, indeed, distinct.

  Beneath the talon of a red-tailed hawk a pigeon

  moved briefly until it didn’t. The hawk stripped

  the common bird, piercing its thick neck. Beak probing body

  until I could see the blood from where I stood inside.

  This could happen, naturally enough, even in Brooklyn.

  This could happen whether or not my mother was dead.

  I didn’t eat for weeks because it felt wrong to want bread & milk.

  The hawk’s face running red, beautiful as it plucked & picked

  its silver-white prey apart. It wasn’t magic, but hungrily, I watched.

  As if I didn’t know memory could devour corpses

  caught alive in midair. I opened the window,

  knelt on the fire escape. I was the prey

  & hawk. This was finally myself swallowing

  those small, common parts of me. Tearing all of that away

  into strips, pulling my breast open to the bone. I saw myself

  torn apart, tearing & tearing at the beautiful face,

  the throat beneath my claw. My grieving face red

  with being exactly what I knew myself to be.

  from The Paris Review

  FRANCINE J. HARRIS Sonata in F Minor, K.183: Allegro

  [Domenico Scarlatti, Daria van den Bercken]

  Car tires rush through and announce the rain. You can hear

  the shuffling of someone street sweeping in the street.

  The insistent men outside Stingray’s, the cutoff lull

  of ambulance testing siren, the women. who step in the street and yell

  to anyone they loved once and it sounds like prelude if

  Scarlatti hadn’t moved to Madrid

  would he have moved the notes diatonically as the rain falls up

  a roof. ascends the scaffolding. It’s impossible to read The Street

  without seeing Mrs. Hedges on mine. leaning from a window on the ground

  level. of my building peering out under her red bandana considering

  me as I lean my body over the railing and watch the men dressed

  black and in gray I tell a man to stop peeing on my car and when

  he turns around. he is not surprised. He says

  he isn’t peeing, he

  is counting his money.

  from The New York Review of Books

  TERRANCE HAYES George Floyd

  You can be a bother who dyes

  his hair Dennis Rodman blue

  in the face of the man kneeling in blue

  in the face the music of his wrist-

  watch your mouth is little more

  than a door being knocked

  out of the ring of fire around

  the afternoon came evening’s bell

  of the ball and chain around the neck

  of the unarmed brother ground down

  to gunpowder dirt can be inhaled

  like a puff the magic bullet point

  of transformation both kills and fires

  the life of the party like it’s 1999 bottles

  of beer on the wall street people

  who sleep in the streets do not sleep

  without counting yourself lucky

  rabbit’s foot of the mountain

  lion do not sleep without

  making your bed of the river

  boat gambling there will be

  no stormy weather on the water

  bored to death any means of killing

  time is on your side of the bed

  of the truck transporting Emmett

  till the break of day Emmett till

  the river runs dry your face

  the music of the spheres

  Emmett till the end of time

  from The New Yorker

  EDWARD HIRSCH Waste Management

  (Skokie, 1970)

  Punch the time clock

  and try to keep up

  with the two collectors

  who trained you

  since they need to finish

  the route in five hours

  and get to their second jobs

  on time, move steadily

  behind the truck,

  don’t stop to rest

  in the shade

  between the houses,

  don’t dawdle or slip

  on the gravel

  in the alley, watch out

  for needles

  and broken glass,

  it’s hot as a dustbowl

  in August, but don’t wipe

  the sweat from your face

  with your glove

  or your torn sleeve,

  lift the trash cans

  with your whole body,

  don’t embarrass yourself

  and wave to a girl

  from the step

  of the garbage truck

  racing down Niles Center Road

  on the way to the dump

  at the end of the day,

  don’t roll on the carpet

  in rage when you get home

  or slam the door to your room

  and topple the trophies,

 
; never turn yellow-eyed

  with hepatitis

  and land in the hospital

  just to be seen.

  from Five Points

  ISHION HUTCHINSON David

  You marveled at the vein in the marble.

  The moment’s slight pulse when you approached.

  His blood murmured when you neared, so I

  believed, and still do. When I returned to

  it, you were gone in the other country

  of my head that will never, like him, age.

  Long was I able to stare at the vein.

  The giant must’ve just laughed and mocked him.

  Then he imagined the giant’s fall, and heard

  a restless quiet as far as Sokho.

  He thought of the river near the vineyard,

  its broad dreaming-stone. He knew it no more.

  The animals looked inconsolable.

  They knew their boy was lost to become king.

  I was supposed to photograph you both;

  but the stone sank in me and I didn’t;

  my eyes going between David’s and your eyes

  as the army, scattered, pushed us apart,

  the tumult blotted out what I shouted

  to you, which he heard, turned, nodded gently

  with a killer’s uncommon sympathy.

  from The New York Review of Books

  DIDI JACKSON Two Mule Deer

  walked past my window

  this morning—female

  I think, no antlers,

  as the day-moon pressed

  like a faded thumbprint

  into the bare back

  of the Santa Cruz Mountains

  and the meadow of wild rye

  and wand buckwheat rocked

  in the new light,

  all hide and eyes and hunger

  moving with caution and blaze.

  Is there a coming of good?

  As if their path was already decided,

  I watched them step into the day,

  black tail tipped and wide eared.

  So much of what I want

  isn’t even about me.

  Yesterday, a friend said

  the sight of deer means danger

  is clear. No coyote

  or mountain lions nearby.

  Still, I remember

  what it feels like

  to be a sidewalk,

  a girl suddenly

  tamped down

  at an all-night party,

  fingered then dropped

  by a boy who will

  be dishonorably discharged

  from the Army

  only two years later.

  You know how it feels

  wanting to walk into

  the rain and disappear—

  While hiking,

  a photographer found

  two deer legs

  about one hundred feet apart.

  Cloven hooves and dewclaws

  intact. Adapted for fleeing

  predators. Left by a hunter.

  We are only what we are.

  Don’t pity me.

  A slight steam rises

  from the backs of the deer

  as they move past

  the black oaked edge

  into the white light

  lifting their eyes

  to the tree line,

  then to my window,

  then to the sky,

  hooves striking the ground

  over and over

  like the syllables

  of a low staccato voice.

  from The Kenyon Review

  MAJOR JACKSON Double Major

  I emerge whenever he confuses the lamp for a moon.

  It is then he thinks of fine bindings in ordered athenaeums.

  I own his face, but he washes and spends too little time behind his ears.

  He sees me in the mirror behind thick clouds of shaving

  cream then suddenly believes in ghosts.

  His other selves are murals in the cave of his mind. They are speechless

  yet large. They steer his wishes like summer rain and amplify

  his terrors like newscasters.

  What he doesn’t know: his dreams are his father’s dreams, which are his

  grandfather’s dreams, and so on. They possessed a single wish.

  He knocks repeatedly on the bolted door to his imagination.

  Tragically, he believes he can mend his wounds with his poetry.

  And thus, I am his most loyal critic. He trots me out like a police dog.

  He calls our thirst for pads and pencils destiny.

  Our voices come together like two wings of a butterfly.

  On occasion, he closes his eyes and sees me.

  I am negative space: the test to all men are created equal.

  We are likely to dance at weddings against my will. He pulled out the same

  moves writing this poem, a smooth shimmy and a hop.

  This page is a kind of looking glass making strange whatever stone-carvings

  he installed along the narrow road to his interior.

  I suffer in silence wedded to his convictions. He would like to tell you

  the truth about love. But we are going to bed, to bed.

  from The Yale Review

  AMAUD JAMAUL JOHNSON So Much for America

  I was interrogated via helicopter

  while taking a shortcut through

  a field I was handcuffed leaving

  this post office I was placed in

  a lineup in the middle of the street

  I dress nattily I wear sports jackets

  I use rubbing alcohol to keep

  my sneakers clean My sweatshirts

  with the stitched block letters

  from certain colleges won’t stop

  complete strangers from searching

  my crotch I whisper uncontrollably

  I smile when nothing’s funny Gun

  at my temple Shit stinging my ear

  Is that a knife in your hand I thought

  protocol was the scruff of your collar

  On the curb On your stomach

  Cheekbone on the hood The smell

  of good wax I’m so aware of my

  body Do you think about your body

  Look at your hands Show me your

  hand I’m returning to Ellison

  I’m surrounded You’re surrounded

  But I’m always alone

  from The Southern Review

  YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA Wheelchair

  Weeks on my back, counting

  stars not up there, cutting quick

  close corners in the wheelchair

  Ralph kept moving true as oil,

  questions silent in my mouth

  after hearing a ragged sound

  rattle loose from other souls

  as if within my own body,

  trying not to drag my foot,

  & near misses in the hallway

  pumped dares through blood

  as we rolled into the elevator.

  I can see my great-grandma

  Sarah, as wheels of her chair

  furrowed those chopped rows,

  feet curled under her, a rake

  or a hoe held in strong hands,

  weeding corn, beans, & potatoes

  dug to feed her hungry family

  down in the Mississippi Delta,

  & today it is not hard to hear

  a moan rise out of black earth

  where this woman raised hot

  red peppers for her turtle soup.

  from The Paris Review

  DANA LEVIN Immigrant Song

  Bitter Mother

  Blue, dead, rush of mothers,

  conceal your island, little star.

  Trains, hands, note on a thread,

  Poland’s dish of salt.

  They said, The orphanlands

  of America

  promise you a father—

  T
he ship’s sorrows, broken daughter,

  the ocean’s dark, dug out.

  Silent Father

  Rain, stars, sewage in the spill,

  hush the river.

  your black boat, broken snake,

  you hid. You sailed

  for the meritlands of America,

  dumped your name in the black

  water—

  In the village they pushed the Rabbi

  to the wall—someone

  blessed the hunter.

  Angry Daughter

  One says No and the other

  says nothing at all—

  Chicago, I will live in your museums

  where Europe is a picture on the wall.

  Obedient Child

  I concealed my island,

  my little star.

  In my black boat I hid.

  I hid in pictures on the wall.

  I said, I am here in America,

  your hero, your confusion,

  your disappointment after all.

  They said,

  How did you end up so bad

  in a country this good and tall.

  from The Nation

  ADA LIMÓN The End of Poetry

  Enough of osseous and chickadee and sunflower

  and snowshoes, maple and seeds, samara and shoot,

  enough chiaroscuro, enough of thus and prophecy

  and the stoic farmer and faith and our father and tis

  of thee, enough of bosom and bud, skin and god

  not forgetting and star bodies and frozen birds,

  enough of the will to go on and not go on or how

  a certain light does a certain thing, enough

  of the kneeling and the rising and the looking

  inward and the looking up, enough of the gun,

  the drama, and the acquaintance’s suicide, the long-lost

  letter on the dresser, enough of the longing and

  the ego and the obliteration of ego, enough

  of the mother and the child and the father and the child

  and enough of the pointing to the world, weary

  and desperate, enough of the brutal and the border,

  enough of can you see me, can you hear me, enough