only so many types of hunger you can pack onto an island before you’re surrounded
BY BERNARD FERGUSON
2019 Gregory Djanikian Scholar in Poetry
Previously appeared in Raleigh Review
i tell my cousin i am fortunate to be so far inland that i have to go searching for trouble from the water / but it won’t be long before he and everyone i love is swallowed by some closer threat of drowning / i tell him the oceans are only your friends until they become your most prominent enemy / when the shoreline comes licking at your toes and then grows hungry for more / but he is unfazed / he thinks there are sharper things lurking than the boil of a distant water / and he is telling me of how a child once mistook a woman waiting in traffic / as the enemy / and pressed the only kind of ice left on the island to her head / and then pulled the trigger / and he is also telling me of the young boy who sat in the back seat and watched / as his mother was made into a slow bloom of decay / and i have waded in enough darkness to know that if you hold a particular amount of grief in front of the eyes / any body can become untouchable by hope / and perhaps this is why my cousin is speaking of justice / and the lengths we must travel to hold it in our weary palms / of how he gifted a pack of cigarettes to one of the boys from around the block / and then walked / unflinching / into the undying summer / hoping to return later to a torrent of blood / and i know i have paid less for a smaller violence / and would sacrifice even more for the taste of a slow unfolding peace / and i know the flood swelling in my throat is at least a bit similar / to the flood pushing the ships back to shore / the flood and its own pair of young hands / growing even more desperate / as we speak
on humor
BY BERNARD FERGUSON
2019 Gregory Djanikian Scholar in Poetry
Previously appeared in Epiphany Magazine
yes / it is hilarious the way your company has given me wings tonight / a man once made a crescent moon of his afro while sliding his feet elegant / floating clean away from the jaws of a familiar agony / & it is him i conjure tonight as i make my stunning exit / i draw out my fleeing across a sidewalk / make a slow desert out of downtown chicago / & it is funny / my lips kissed the mouth of a whiskey glass & my blood blooming now / erasing what i know of pain / the laugh is always at the expense of someone who is not here / a face we cannot see while wrapped in the throes of a small & convenient joy / but gorgeous things must come with a cost / my mother named me beautiful only when the night was plump with the cracked fruit of something else / someone whose fortune did not arrive in time to be given my name / now each one of my years / funny / & perhaps this is not the best joke / but there it is / your lips rising into a brief smile / your eyes peering through the window & onto your porch / as if i was there / collecting years & stacking inches / sprouting / even if toward a wide & hungry mouth / the boy who was promised at least one breath & a hole / or two in his body & this is humor / a tale with a twist / the plot thickens & you were promised a good time / i want to tell more of the story / i do / but today the ground will part & press someone new into its belly / & i am exhausted from the knowing / there is a gun’s neck through a car window / fresh exits forced into his skin / new mouths hungry for air / & i am here too / the screen & its flicker blue across my cheeks / i watch a man with similar bones become the smallest graveyard / again & again / i watch until i learn to unname the joke when i see it / become a riot when anyone laughs
juxtaposition with foliage
BY BERNARD FERGUSON
2019 Gregory Djanikian Scholar in Poetry
Previously appeared in Nashville Review
there is a frigid wind / closing in from some distant hill & so / i find the garden at the edge of the block / run my hands along the lilies / & whisper a song as apology & it is exhausting / how we all admire death in our own ways but i want the filter / that makes the reds seem green again / & until then i walk the streets with my eyes close / i sleep during the drive through the vineyard / i have been tricked before & this time / i want to leave no different than when i came in / the world is on fire & you are eager for the photo / but what of the trees & their labor? / how each leaf is draped in a new hue & its edges / curled toward itself as if retreating / from the widening mouth of a small flame / & listen, when i say i am not fond of autumn / i am thinking mostly of my homies & how it seems / we only have one good season where the gold falls / just right around our necks / where we can leak across the park with our music loud / the type of niggas basking in safety & admiring a good oak / peer outside your glass now & tell me / of how it looks like you are dreaming / tell me about the children laughing & drowning / in dead leaves / large golden dust falling from their hair / & falling from their arms / & i will tell you about the dream / where my homies line the street / only to dance & bend / their bodies & bend / their knees until they drop & every night / when i close my eyes / they slip through my fingers / before hitting the ground & i plead then / just as plead to leaves / come back come back / come back
