Night
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She crawls to the edge on bright paws, to where humans come to argue with gods as the lampblack hours fill up with the scent of animals. The horizon is a strand of barbed wire shadows shimmy under to look death in the eye, quivering like a stem of flesh unzipping earth from sky. Her quietness is almost vegetable. She owns light & darkness. The unsaid lingers—twofold & then threefold—her great head beckoning halfway across the abyss. She edges so close her skin is metaphysical, her brain a hive, a hum, a lantern pulsing with eyes printed on wings.
Yusef Komunyakaa, the subject of this issue of Callaloo, teaches at Princeton University. His most recent book of poems is Taboo: The Wishbone Trilogy, Part I. The numerous prizes, awards and honors he has received for his poetry include a chancellorship with the American Academy of Poets, the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (Wesleyan University), the William Faulkner Prize (Universite Rennes, France), the Kingsley Tufts Award for Poetry, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
