Smote - James Kimbrell

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      in Florida alone, the subsequent deflation

      of our hero groomed by the goddess,

      sped by the wind, loved by his mutt, envy

      of his entire dreamed-up Mediterranean—

      I release you like the crank-addled truck driver

      releases his cargo at the midnight dock

      until the warehouse is one in a trail

      of crumbs, little light left on behind him.

       —for April

      To return to the living, you have to walk backward

      from that place where every beer joint has a playground

      and no one’s afraid of happiness guaranteed to end.

      Why am I here? Why did my sister disappear? Waves

      of foam washing up around her comatose mouth,

      helicopter worthy. Soothsayer of katydids, reader

      of bees inside the pink hibiscus, who am I asking?

      In the land of her absence, everyone is allotted

      so many tears. To return to the living, you need

      to notice the dogs at our feet, anxious for scraps,

      dust rolling in from the funeral next door. Why

      did my sister get tossed by her belt loop out the back

      of some cinder-block excuse for a bar? Why death

      beside a utility pole? Tiller of clouds, augur of

      whatever, when the answer arrives, do us a favor.

      If I eat a diet of rain and nuts, walk to the P.O.

      in a loincloth, file for divorce from the world of matter,

      say not-it! to the sea oats, not-it! to the sky

      above the disheveled palms, not-it! to the white or green oyster boats

      and the men on the bridge with their fishing rods

      that resemble so many giant whiskers,

      if I repeat this is not it, this is not why I’m waiting here,

      will I fill the universe with all that is not-it

      and allow myself to grow very still in the center of

      this fishing town in winter? Will I look out past the cat

      sleeping in the windowsill and say not-it! garbage can,

      not-it! Long’s Video Store, until I happen upon what

      is not not-it? Will I wake up and BEHOLD!

      the “actual,” the “real,” the “awe-thentic,” the IS?

      Instead I walk down to the Island Quicky, take a pound

      of bait shrimp in an ice-filled baggie, then walk to the beach

      to catch my dinner. Now waiting is the work

      I’m waiting for. Now the sand crane dive-bombs the surf

      of his own enlightenment because everything

      is bait and lust and hard-up for supper.

      I came out here to pare things down,

      wanted to be wind, simple as sand, to hear each note

      in the infinite orchestra of waves fizzling out

      beneath the rotting dock at five o’clock in the afternoon

      when the voice that I call I is a one-man boat

      slapping toward the shore of a waning illusion.

      Hello, waves of salty and epiphanic distance. Good day,

      bird who will eventually

      go blind from slamming headfirst into the water.

      What do you say fat flounder out there

      deep in your need, looking like sand speckled with shells,

      lying so still you’re hardly there, lungs lifting

      with such small air, flesh both succulent and flakey

      when baked with white wine, lemon and salt, your eyes

      rolling toward their one want when the line jerks, and the reel

      clicks, and the rod bends, and you give up

      the ocean floor for a mouthful of land.

       —for Private First Class C. Leigh McInnis

      I appear to be a full-on rich guy

      wheeling into Oxford

      down the cedar-lined drive across from William Faulkner’s

      determined to shield myself (my fancy wristwatch

      my roadster

      both used both fast as hell) from the shame

      I once knew in this my state

      beneath my bowl-cut

      my underwear of the dead

      my hand-me-down teeth

      and at the first supper club I light upon—three gins in—I say to this woman

      Khayat is of Lebanese descent

      No hell! no he ain’t she says

      nearly hysterical in her insistence that no prez of ole mizz

       could be a sandnigger

      I ask her where do you go to church

      Saint Johns she says

      tell Father Hadeed I said hi

      tell him I said Alhamdulilla

      tell him the ghost of Bill Faulkner quoth to me

      quail fly south in the afternoon

      better pray often

      better pray soon

      for those students in ’64 crossing Lynch Street

      on the way to Jackson State

      white drivers speeding up

      dubbed it “blacktopping”

      how much shit can one people take

      consider the white family walking down Ellis

      carrying their groceries

      too poor for even the most worn out hooptie

      the youngest amongst them a little boy

       —Hey y’all!—

      totes among other items

      a sweaty gallon of milk

      that has burst a jagged seam in the paper sack

      so that he cradles the whole mess

      with both arms as if carrying a sick baby

      and that was rough but

      no one swerved to hit us

      Jesus of the Confounderacy

      Jesus of the Union

      because

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