#eve l ewing
The schedule of this year’s Chicago Poetry Block Party is now live! If you’re in Chicago, join us for this free celebration of poetry, music, art, and community at Austin Town Hall on Saturday, July 28.
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I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store
Eve L. Ewing
looking over the plums, one by one
lifting each to his eyes and
turning it slowly, a little earth,
checking the smooth skin for pockmarks
and rot, or signs of unkind days or people,
then sliding them gently into the plastic.
whistling softly, reaching with a slim, woolen arm
into the cart, he first balanced them over the wire
before realizing the danger of bruising
and lifting them back out, cradling them
in the crook of his elbow until
something harder could take that bottom space.
I knew him from his hat, one of those
fine porkpie numbers they used to sell
on Roosevelt Road. it had lost its feather but
he had carefully folded a dollar bill
and slid it between the ribbon and the felt
and it stood at attention. he wore his money.
upright and strong, he was already to the checkout
by the time I caught up with him. I called out his name
and he spun like a dancer, candy bar in hand,
looked at me quizzically for a moment before
remembering my face. he smiled. well
hello young lady
hello, so chilly today
should have worn my warm coat like you
yes so cool for August in Chicago
how are things going for you
oh he sighed and put the candy on the belt
it goes, it goes.
==
More like this:
A Small Needful Fact, Ross Gay
The Restoration, Gary Jackson
A Supermarket in California, Allen Ginsberg
Today in …
2020: Day Beginning with Seeing the International Space Station And a Full Moon Over the Gulf of Mexico and All its Invisible Fishes, Jane Hirshfield
2019:Flores Woman, Tracy K. Smith
2018:The Universe as Primal Scream, Tracy K. Smith
2017:Soul, David Ferry
2016:Turkeys, Galway Kinnell
2015:He Said Turn Here, Dean Young
2014:I Don’t Miss It, Tracy K. Smith
2013:Hotel Orpheus, Jason Myers
2012:Emily Dickinson’s To-Do List, Andrea Carlisle
2011:Now That I Am in Madrid and Can Think, Frank O’Hara
2010:The Impossible Marriage, Donald Hall
2009:The Rider, Naomi Shihab Nye
2008:from Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, John Berryman
2007:This Heavy Craft, P.K. Page
2006:Late Ripeness, Czeslaw Milosz
2005:A Martian Sends A Postcard Home, Craig Raine
Eve L. Ewing reads her poem ‘Why You Cannot Touch My Hair’
my hair is my childhood friend who used to come over every day and became cool in high school and then began to do drugs and then ran away but now is back trying to get her life together and we have coffee together one Sunday morning before her shift at the grocery store
my hair was in a zoo. my hair escaped from the zoo and took out three officers of the law before they shot my hair up full of tranquilizers. tranquilizers only because my hair is too valuable to die
my hair is a speakeasy. it’s not that no one can get in– it’s just that you don’t know the password
my hair did a lot of work and climbed many mountains literal and metaphorical to get here. my hair ran out of oxygen tanks a mile back and has been heaving for breath ever since but is determined to reach the summit. my hair endured a bonnet last night. that’s a lot of work
my hair is a technology from the future and will singe your fingertips, be careful
my hair doesn’t care about what you want
my hair has a brother. I washed and conditioned and moisturized and combed and braided my hair’s brother in the kitchen sink when my hair’s brother was depressed. my hair’s brother has a daughter. my hair’s brother’s daughter is tenderheaded and I sing while I comb her, holding her at the roots, touching her forehead so gently and telling her I love her while she cries
