TWO POEMS by Tommye Blount
Negro Under Glass
The stream, the riverine ticker under the talking heads
on six o’clock news; the head looped
through the light’s noose; captured, an apprehension
in high definition; their latest high, their timely, their watch face
tick-tocking; an aped choreography, Miss In
Formation’s crazed dance gone viral; the plague of black
squares checkering photo grids; game for their boredom,
the disembodied voice boring through lips; the voice—whew,
chile, the ghetto, the get low, the drop it low download;
their pinched curiosity, swiped marvel, the double-tapped untapped
oddity—this girl of a galaxy in a pop-cap sized lens, foamy Venus:
waking in a sea gone dark; in a theater, under fogged glass,
under the weight, gauze of long breath in calculation of her breadth;
on the shelf above and under her; under the hooded white eye
—erect, lit—all under the tight lid of a tiny clouded jar.
Robe and Helmet Bag
Made of waterproof rubberoid material. Separate compartments
for robe and helmet. Price, each $1.00
—from Catalogue of Official Robes and Banners
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
So many of you search unguardedly inside me
to remove what’s needed in order
to put everything back. Sweaty as surgeons,
I see your faces as you open me up,
once you’ve returned with every finger
unclasped from the fist of your bright winged savior.
Let me lord over—skirted justices, this mucked
land’s cloaked custodians—your ironed wrinkles,
your blued whites. All your bleached
flags, I’ll surrender to no one, no foreign element—
that which, left unchecked, would leave a colored mess
bleeding over all that labor, all those wifely fingers,
the seams through which they leave and enter,
marrying one white yard to another white yard.
Over every darkened threshold, carry me
with you, purity’s patrolmen, lift me up
with your clean hands. Clasp me close
with this fastener’s badge. Of your nation’s fabric,
I promise to protect and serve.
