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Pantoum for a Black Man on a Greyhound Bus
- Wesleyan University Press
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Pantoum for a BlackMan on a Greyhound Bus I just met him and he looks out the window, cries, tells me he spent fifteen yearsbehind prison walls. What I can sayto him is aweak welcome home. I can't find vocabulary to resolve absence. He left fifteen yearsbehind prison walls. Anne Sexton used to call her asyluma jail. I wish there were vocabulary to resolve absence, to name the fight past newborn insanity. Anne Sexton used to call her asylum a jail. I don't want to know how this brother earned his cell. He's fighting his waypast newborninsanity, weeping for his mother and her useless songs. I don't want to know what earned him a cell. My real brother's mother died on her kitchen floor. What of that night? What of her useless songs? Did my brother hear the prayers breaking in her hands? I think of my stepmother murdered on her floor: at twenty-nine, my brother became his father's son. What of those prayersbreaking in Camille's hands? For whose sake should my brother be forgiven? At twenty-nine, my brother became his father's son, the trail of blood beginning at the sire's gate. For whose sake should my brother be forgiven? Am I awoman or am I my brother's keeper? M My brothers spill blood at their sisters'gates while we watch our doors with uneasy eyes. Are we supposed to be our brothers' keepers when those children return as sullen men? And here I watch mydoor with uneasyeyes, hoping I can welcome mybrother home: a child who returns as a grown man, who looks out the window and cries tohimself. 14 ...