from a black and white photograph
at the House of Dance and Feathers

She is not
in black not
weeping, not leaning
against someone as she staggers,
drunk with grief, no—

She dances on top
of her son’s coffin
outside the Lafitte Projects
where he was gunned down.
She dances and dances
unbending, limbs thrashing
like Kali
on Shiva’s ashen body.

Gray clothes—
are they sweats?—
sway in the sun-blasted noon,
her two living boys
make music around her:
D-Boy gone
who that killed D-Boy who
first told her the news? She can’t,
some funneled shape
his horn won’t blow.

No lace,
no shawl across her shoulders.
Bare-armed, back cocked,
ass out, she dances, yes—

—another thud of percussion—
I, no she
grunts,
pushing him out
ripping open at Charity,
fluorescent lights
backlighting his arched shape

—bright slash of the trumpet—

he burns with fever,
laughs at ice
tracing
the pouting lips

late July, night blooming jasmine
thick in the mouth

I grab another sliver
—slap of snare—
—no, she does,
it’s her boy,
a number now
pushing up the murder graph
like a thermometer

oh mama mama

Men hauling the casket bend
at the knees
not from weight
but from bass thump,

from tuba’s
fat momentum.

Her sweats shift
soft and loose
as they play it loose and mean,
a threat in the throb
the trombone moans
she’s gone

past shiver
past flash of brass glint
& casket shine underneath her feet

she shakes her head—look:
she’s turning to look
into everyone’s f ace.

Andy Young

Used with permission of the poet.