Pleasure Dome. Yusef Komunyakaa

you can go

      to heaven.”

      Uncle Jesse

      would show up

      after a rainstorm

      some tin-roof night

      after two years

      working turpentine camps,

      pine scent in his clothes—

      shove a wad of greenbacks

      into Grandmama’s apron pocket.

      A Prince Albert

      cigarette between two fingers,

      Old Crow on his breath,

      that .38 Smith & Wesson

      under his overalls jumper,

      & the click-click of dice

      & bright shuffle of cards.

      Just a few things he learned at 17

      in World War I.

      Family tree,

      taproot,

      genealogy of blues.

      We’ve seen shadows

      like workhorses

      limp across ghost fields

      & heard the rifle crack.

      Blackbirds

      blood flowered

      in the southern sun.

      Brass tambourines,

      octave of pain

      clear as blood on a silent mirror.

      Someone close to us

      dragged away in dawnlight

      here in these iron years.

Instructions for Building Straw Huts

      First you must have

      unbelievable faith in water,

      in women dancing like hands playing harps

      for straw to grow stalks of fire.

      You must understand the year

      that begins with your hands tied

      behind your back,

      worship of dark totems

      weighed down with night birds that shift their weight

      & leave holes in the sky. You must know

      what’s behind the shadow of a treadmill—

      its window the moon’s reflection

      & silent season reaching

      into red sunlight hills.

      You must know the hard science

      of building walls that sway with summer storms.

      Locking arms to a frame of air, frame of oak

      rooted to ancient ground

      where the door’s constructed last,

      just wide enough for two lovers

      to enter on hands & knees.

      You must dance

      the weaverbird’s song

      for mending water & light