Crab Legs, and; Passage, and; 11 North

CRAB LEGS

We wake up late because we stayedUp all night waiting for the moneyTo hit, because our hunger stayedThe night and hangs, today, like honey,

Like stars, from the Great Bear's son's mouth.The lights of buildings hang like teeth,Constellatory teeth,Hang like the golden teethArranged in Daddy's mouth

When he would come on food stamps dayTo eat a little something too.Constellatory teeth that lieOn Mommy's counter slick with dew-

like grease, and after this, the feast!We gorge ourselves on the seafoodWe bought that seems to widen, yeastlike,in my eyes that drop their hoods

As I get sleepy. Daddy takesMe to my room to sleep, my bellyEmpty. They bicker as sleep makesA constellation of the deli.

Passage

So I was walking through the garden sectionAt work, and it was raining really hard,And I heard chirping coming through the rain.I heard it coming from the rafters. I looked upTo see birds flitting, like kids running throughThe store, among the rafters, so I stopped.

The sounds those birds made to each other wasLike laughter flitting from each rafter. … AndIt made me think about the trip I tookTo Connecticut, right by the Sound, the LongIsland Sound, where I opened my screen door

To see a rabbit crouched in the grass, pawingAt its pink nose, and robins hopping,Their bellies red and puffy as some drunksWith beer guts bouncing on some coals in Hell.They made me want to go and see the sea.

I went and watched the tides whenever IFelt like Odysseus at Erebus,The shades indifferent to him

Until he offered up some blood. Blood made them breakFrom drifting back and forthLike waves he'd just departed fromTo answer questions that he posed.

And I swear that the silence over thereWas like that questioning of shades,

In that the tides reminded me of spirits rollingFrom muteness out to beaches where the living call,And speech was like the rocks the tides revealed,The waypoint between them and us, betweenMy father and his grandma's ghost.

But Robin, the old crackhead from by here,Comes walking up like Caliban on crack,And smiles at me, hugs me, asks for a loose,And plots on how to beg my mom for change,Then DVD, red tufts of naps beneathHis fitted hat, comes carrying a fish jaw,Saying someone already ate the head,And wishes me, my mom, and Robin, too,A happy Ramadan, and to be safe,But when I tell a friend about the jawHe quotes Mo-G on munafiquns and fakes.

I think all that it is is that he lacksThe words to tell me that it's his first iftar,The first one in the lunar year for all,So, when I finally got your text at noonAbout how you had celebrated sehri,And I'd just heard those birds in flossy mistLike mimics for the waves that sat through silenceWith me as I feared for my father's shade,

The thought of all the silence that was thereNo longer makes me cry: my father followsThe late-night traffic all the way to allThe kin his grandma left on Georgia pines,And I, because you gave the words to me,Knew that you ate and fasted while he rose.

11 NORTH

These are the things I wish to leave.The consolations of the night.Things that the whinnying mares of wind carryToward windows that will not let any of it in.

The nighted symptoms of the sickness.Things that push us toward the toilet for after-midnight pissesBefore the hands come knocking in interruption for the census.

The sluggish coming of each canonical hour.Things that goad our gliding feet from room to atriumWhere we read the poorly translated Confessions of Augustine.

These are the nightly tests of attrition.Things that we...