Dangerous Goods - Sean Hill

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       Barely enough room for burial—squeezed

       in tight like a coffin too small—surrounded

       by others, sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers

       like books shelved—handsomely bound

       in black—volumes in an ongoing travelogue

      Day 5

       “I was born”

       Black and bold

       sprayed on a concrete mooring block

       on the pier

       A stock line

       the “once upon a time” of Slave Narratives

       They were born in America

      Day 6

       Framed by the porthole’s red rim

       two blues meet

       Waves rise redundant undulant

       a cat’s hackles—deep blue

       (of brand new jeans he buys for the label)

       indigo that was king before cotton

      Day 7

       Bombay Sapphire I bought duty free

       in a bottle the clear blue of the water

       at a Bahamian beach

       does not comfort me.

       for Geddes Thomas

      Christopher Wren designed it from base to dome—

      built in the 17th & 18th centuries,

      declared complete about ninety years after

      the first twenty were brought to Jamestown.

      Alone in the Whispering Gallery

      I lean to the ear of no one to my left—

       Can you hear me?

      A voice, my father’s,

      his father’s, comes from the right—

       Can you hear me?

      I’ve brought voices here with me;

      they linger the way odors do.

      A friend who visited the citadel at Gorée Island said

      you can smell death left over from the days of the trade.

       for Eric Black

      Big Ben’s struck five again.

      Why am I here at the Millennium Wheel,

      the eye of London? I don’t want to queue-up—

      won’t queue-up, but I’m here.

      London is lousy with old buildings,

      statues, parks, theaters, and museums.

      The Tate Britain houses a piece by Richard Dadd—

      a nineteenth century Brit.

      Killed his father and lived a long life

      in asylums painting fairy landscapes.

      The soundtrack for this solitary sojourn

      quiet and incidental like the puzzle piece

      found face down when I disembarked at Heathrow—

      a dreary oatmeal until turned over to reveal

      no pattern, a solid green, unexpected—

      hard to place like the tune the guy on the Tube whistled

      now rattling my head or the dead pigeon I saw

      from Westminster Bridge yesterday floating in the Thames

      —wings slightly out somewhere mid-flap—either fluttering

      down on sidewalk clutter or clapping away

      from the progress of pedestrians—

      flying on the waves of tour boats’ wakes.

       for A. Potter

      In Cairo I missed street pigeons; they were

      not there at the open-air eatery where

      I dined with Jasmine off Talaat Harb

      when the morsel of macaroni missed

      my mouth. I only saw pigeons on menus

      and the backseat of a Peugeot in and atop

      a sturdy-looking wooden cage because

      the cage door was open. There were

      no sparrows to clean up my mess either.

      We found them on a menu a few days

      later. The waiter hesitated, then translated

      the Arabic for our table, and we said Yes,

      we want sparrows. The hesitation at bones

      holding up, resisting the jaw, my maw,

      those bones for tendons to bind muscles

      to and help buoy that tiny body above

      the flow of folk with their sedentary

      urban tendencies, a mouthful that came

      with a people stopping by this river,

      edged with papyrus that they beat flat

      and dried brown to leave notes for each

      other. They were delicious, those sparrows,

      in their port wine sauce.

      I’ve been on the move; the bottoms

      of my shoes have rested on forty-eight states,

      six Canadian Provinces, seven countries,

      three continents, and the crush is constant.

       You look like someone’s daughter;

      I find that so attractive. I once

      thought this, but now it’s someone’s

      mother or aunt more often than not

      or cousin or uncle or brother or son

      on occasion. The crush is everywhere,

      or maybe it’s me, my luck, like always

      seeing the corner crooners by the storefront

      of The Heart, loitering—singing for quarters

      and grins. Most days I can count on the first

      and second crush, and sometimes there’s a fifth

      or sixth. They’re as likely not to notice me

      as to smile in my eyes. Either way my heart

      skips like those flat stones that kiss the skin

      of the pond and fly off again before sinking.

      Today it is you in that polka dot dress I need

      to thank for getting me to three. The Heart’s

      a big chain; there’s one everywhere you go,

      and

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