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Jamaal May Page 2
The Boy Who Bathes the Dead
The boy decides
soldiers can no longer be dead,
so he begins to
dig.
Graves are
shallow enough that, using only his hands,
he quickly finds
a limb,
buried without a
corpse. He brushes dirt away,
slides the arm
into the pocket of overalls.
Until all
soldiers are found and placed
in separate
ziplock bags,
his fingers rake
soil,
churn the dark earth. His brother
finds him
afterwards filling a sink to rinse
the crevices and
metal joints, worried
he bathes the
plastic infantry too carefully.
As if they had
families. As if they were men.
The Girl Who
Builds Rockets from Bricks
finds no voice
louder
than hers in the
caverns
of deserted
houses
or overgrown
lots that surround
her excavation
for spare parts:
shards of a
whiskey bottle, matches,
anthills
erupting from concrete
seams, the
discarded husk
of a beetle. The
shells of vacants
reflect the
echoes of her little
song—a song with
lyrics
assembled in a
quiet language
only she
speaks—language
not spoken with
tongue but hands
that snatch up
fists of grass,
crunch into dust
the driest leaves—
small hands that
fill jelly jars
with broken
glass, gravel, and fire ants,
each jar, an
engine for a rocket.
Rainwater spills
from a gas can
down
between bricks, the girl
begins her
countdown
without thinking
of a destination.
Hum for the
Stone
Here on the
shoulder
of a freeway,
rebar exposed
by a semi that
crushed a concrete
dividing wall to
avoid crushing
a hatchback
protrudes from slabs
in a way she
imagines bone can.
••
The girl is
doing this again:
pressing a
malachite
into his palm,
her cupped
hand closing his
around
its smooth,
worthless form.
She whispers
kiss-close,
The Book of
the Dead says
we’ll be
falcons with wings
made of this
stone.
••
A boy feels a
broken brick
strike between
shoulders.
The next stone
breaks
against his nose
as he turns,
and if not for
the many ribbons
of blood sliding
between
fingers, one
could think
he was doubled
over
with laughter,
celebration
in the
convulsions.
••
The black
tourmaline she polished
is pushed into
his pocket.
This one
comes in many colors
that make it
easy to confuse
with other
stones. That’s why
it doesn’t
have a legend—
He removes it to
finger
the surface.
Crude, glossy,
looks like it
could spill.
—except for
black. Black
is always
easy: all crow and funeral.
Will you
carry this to mine?
••
Clang and clang
is the stones’ ricochet
off corrugated
steel and shields
made from
garbage can lids.
The bricks in
their hands fit
into a row of
pavers on a path
to a garden that
grows gravestone.
Some come here
to bless barrow-dirt
or to listen for
the sound pebbles
make: a lack, a
hole opening
at the center of
this crumbling din.
© Copyright, 2013,
Jamaal May. |