The Golden Shovel Poem

 

The Golden Shovel

By TERRANCE HAYES

                               

 

1.     1981

 

When I am so small Da's sock covers my

Arm, we

cruise at twilight until we find the place

the real

men lean , bloodshot and translucent with

Cool.

His smile is a gold - plated incantation as

We

drift by women on bar stools, with

nothing left

in them but approachlessness. This is a

school

I do not know yet . But the cue sticks

mean we

are rubbed by light, smooth as wood, the

lurk

of smoke thinned to song. We won't be

out late.

Standing in the middle of the street last

night we

watched the moonlit lawns and a

neighbor strike.

his son in the face . A shadow knocked

straight

Da promised to leave me everything: the

shovel we

used to bury the dog, the words he loved

to sing

his rusted pistol, his squeaky Bible, his

sin.

The boy's sneakers were light on the road.

We

watched him run to us looking wounded

and thin

He'd been caught lying or drinking his

father's gin.

nding his ma, trying to be

a man. We

stood in the road, and my father talked

about Jazz ,

how sometimes a tune is born of outrage.

the boy would be locked upstate. That

night we

got down on our knees in my room. If I

should die

before I wake. Da said to me, it will be too

soon .

 

2. 1991

 

Into the tented city we go, we

akened by the fire's ethereal

 

Afterglow. Born lost and cool

er than heartache. What we

 

know is what we know. The left

hand severed and school

 

ed by cleverness. A plate of we

ekdays cooking . The hour lurk

 

ing in the afterglow. A late

night chant . Into the city we

 

Go. Close your eyes and strike.

a blow. Light can be straight

 

ened by its shadow. What we

break is what we hold. A sing

 

ular blue note. An outcry sin

ged exiting the throat .We

 

push until we thin, thin

king we won't creep back again.

 

While God licks his kin, we

sing until our blood is jazz,

 

we swing from June to June.

We sweat to keep from we

 

eping. Groomed on a die

t of hunger, we end too soon.