by Mitchell L. H. Douglas
Our Youth, Oh Lord, Burns Longer Than the Night
Folk Art
(for Bill Withers)
His voice is the radio. Momma drives
across the Sherman Minton through New Albany
to elementary
in Kentucky. We rise & defy. Four
seats & us two
ramble across the river.
This far above the Ohio, the only current
is sound, the churn of guitar
& a deacon’s voice bless
our ears, the white Opal: jewel
of a ride from another time. Another day
means one more chance for anything.
Dawn ropes my conscience,
Bill’s voice sweet charm
of gold. We cradle him
in the squawk of car speakers, tales
about the hands of a matriarch
like the one a river away.
All through the day—arithmetic
puzzles me, comic books a breeze,
& spelling tests, spelling tests . . .
be gone already.
I can be a mess of a boy, forget
it’s picture day & show up in my uniform,
or think it’s field day & come to school
in street clothes. “Street” clothes
makes me laugh, like the fabric
is as rough as the roads we ride.
Fierce about my time, give me
a ball & a court, no nets required. Give me
a bike to sneak
off the block, a synthezoid
of green & gold, his blue fur friend. Tell me
one day math will make sense,
that addition & subtraction can feel as good
as phasing through walls, me
minus restriction, the world one sound & shape.
Let the radio play.
Poet and visual artist Mitchell L. H. Douglas is the author of dying in the scarecrow’s arms, \blak\ \al-fə bet\, and Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem. A 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, he is Associate Professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, a Cave Canem alum, and cofounder of the Affrilachian Poets.
Comments