2014

That summer we learned the names
Of flowers strong enough to take
Heat and light and all elements
Classical philosophers thought
Could change us.  They seemed to bloom
Against the will of the sun, which was—
According to news reports—warmer
On our planet than the sun guilty
Of sweat our fathers once wiped
From their necks and foreheads.
Baby’s Breath.  Bird of Paradise.  We
Had nerve enough to say names
As if our fingers in the dirt meant
It was our dirt.  Cockscomb.  Cosmos.
Earth hotter than ever, men like me
And my brothers took daily video
Of the garden we planted and sped
It faster to see blossoms brought
In seconds.  Star Gazer.  Foxglove.
Names like prophecy on our tongues
All summer.  Eric Garner.  John Crawford. 
Mike Brown.  Such color bright before
Our weeping eyes:  orange, lilac, red,
And black.  Then, to hit our lessons
Home, somebody showed us how
Simply, a dark flower—because it is
A dark flower—can be cut down.

still life

to Lawrence Jackson, arrested in Chicago for wearing a dress, 1881

A figure in a room. Black dress slit
up the thigh. A voice issues from the seam.

The papers call you an almost woman.
I sit in the dark & watch your hips,

your practiced walk.

//

If I know you only in the moment
you were caught, what kind of we

can that make? Rows of dark bodies
hunched against the page, above

the page. The strangest thing
is that you offered to leave

the city, to walk away with nothing
in your pockets. With no pockets.

This, you think, is what they want
from you. To look & not see you standing.

//

Somewhere, there is a photograph of me
in strapless dress. Me, flexing

my grin, my skinny arms. What an image
won’t show you is the fight at the edges

of the moment—my girlfriend shining
like a pearl, her father’s finger

on the shutter, the compromise
beneath the skirt.

//

They built a room & locked you in it.
The problem is they don’t want

to not see us, exactly. Instead
for us to adhere where they can’t

see, but know we’re there.

//

Already, you are queen of Chicago.
My head shakes somewhere

in the future—Envy? Disbelief?
I draw a frame around the frame,

a bright afternoon in Indiana
draped on your shoulders,

dress black & spun in a field
of gold, dress a knot of brazen

black birds, the body not
a question. Birds eat & birds fly

Clue

i.  

“Hands down, mustard
is the tastiest condiment,” coughed Professor Plum—
his full mouth feigning hunger for the greens-
only sandwiches Mrs. White
laid out for Mr. Boddy’s guests. Miss Scarlet
hadn’t time to peel off her peacoat

before the no-frills food, which she declined, and a pre-cocktail
cocktail, which she accepted. Colonel Mustard
refused all fare, citing the risk of sullying his scarlet
and gold Marine Corps suit, then ate the sugarplums
that happenchanced his pockets like lint. Mrs. White
funneled the motley crew into the green- 

house, where Mr. Green
was rumoring—his hand bridging his mouth to Mrs. Peacock’s
ear in an effort to convince the white-
haired heiress that the sandwich-making maidservant must’ve
poisoned their plum
wine. Mr. Boddy’s award-winning scarlet

runners initially amused Miss Scarlet,
the way one is amused by another with the same name. Mr. Green
thought it odd Mr. Boddy didn’t show, told Professor Plum
as much. “Here we are, pretty as peacocks,
and our host is nowhere to be found,” twirling his mustache
like the villain in a silent black and white.

Minutes into the conservatory tour, Mrs. White
introduced Mr. Boddy, who lay facedown in a scarlet-
berried elder. “This man,” Colonel Mustard
said, “is dead. I know death, even when it’s camouflaged by greenery.”
The discovery proved too much for Mrs. Peacock’s
usual aplomb—
           
she fainted into the arms of Professor Plum.
When she came to, he appeared to her the way a white
knight would look to a distressed damsel. Semiconscious, Mrs. Peacock
pointed to the deceased’s pet Scarlet
Tanager perched on a lead pipe between the body and a briefcase gushing green-
backs. Right away, Colonel Mustard

mustered up an alibi about admiring Mr. Boddy’s plumerias.
Mr. Green followed suit with his own white-
washed version involving one Miss Scarlet and a misdemeanor plea copped…

ii.

“Dinner is served,” said Mrs. White,
inviting Mr. Boddy’s guests by their noms de plume
into the dining room for a precooked
reheated repast. Miss Scarlet
passed the pickings, which didn’t pass muster,
to a rather ravenous Mr. Green.

Nobody faked affability better than Mr. Green,
waving his napkin like a white
flag, acting out the conquered in Colonel Mustard’s
combat stories. Here was Professor Plum’s
chance to charm a certain lady, catching what he called scarlet
fever. “I’ve seen more convincing peacocking

from a tadpole,” quipped Mrs. Peacock,
retiring to the library, green
tea in hand and a tickled Miss Scarlet
in tow. Mr. Boddy’s absence was so brazen it bred white
noise not even tales of exemplum
heroism, narrated by and starring Colonel Mustard,

could quiet—his presence, by all accounts, as keen as mustard
and showy as a pride of peacocks.
Like a boy exiled to his room, Professor Plum
excused himself, giving the others the green
light to do the same. Mrs. White
was in the kitchen scouring skillets

when she heard who she thought was Miss Scarlet
scream. Mr. Boddy’s musty
old library was a crime scene, his final fall on this white-
knuckle ride towards death. “For the dead,” Mrs. Peacock
said, “the grass is greener
on the side of the living.” While plumbing

Mr. Boddy’s body for clues, Professor Plum
found no visible wound—the would-be host appeared scarless,
despite blood haloing his head on the shagreen
rug and a bloodstained candlestick Colonel Mustard  
recognized from dinner. Mrs. Peacock
avoided the sight, turning white

as the sheet with which Mrs. White covered the corpse. Plum
sick of the “poppycock” accusations, she sped into the starlit
night in a ragtop mustang belonging to Mr. Green.