After the Biopsy, and; On Hearing News of Another Shot Black Man

Abstract

After the Biopsy, and; On Hearing News of Another Shot Black Man Kwame Dawes (bio) After the Biopsy She weighs her joy and finds it wanting,a body is a conundrum of betrayals—how easily we forget that the nailgently brushing a nipple sends light—oh, the bright light of the worldpiercing through our bodies, spreadingthe irritable sweetness of delightand needle pricks, but now, cupped,her breasts, she knows, carry the weightof all fears; and the nipples have growninto wounds, this alarm of milkturned into a warning of what used to be pleasure.These days it is hard not to knowthat we grow used to our truestselves, that left alone, untouched,the body returns to a native smell,the smell of earth, of decay,of corruption, and this is the sublimemeaning of faith. We waitfor the conductor of our last daysto arrive, in a lab coat and with handssmelling of antiseptic creams.No one has to prophesy death,the bones pushing against the skinare the portent of all ends.We become the memory of substance.Here is where they say her endbegins, this purple spot, this complexof dark veins and stone-hard flesh, [End Page 14] this abuse, this intrusion. Her fingershave grown used to the riseand roll of a tiny pebbleunder the skin. She is playingwith her unmaking. The doctoroffers to remove it all, to takeaway the weight of her old pleasure,to flatten the ground she walks on,and only then, cupping these ordinary things,does she begin to weep, her bodywarming with the confusingand overwhelming washthat she cannot quiet. This isthe shame and pleasure of the songof loss and the passing of light. [End Page 15] On Hearing News of Another Shot Black Man I am in the lemon-green room. This roomas if the color has exploded the softeningcomfort of green, covering the wornbooks, the discarded folders. Let me saythat this is a green of the shade of lightfiltering through leaves. Imagine a bowlof green olives or grapes in their varietyof shades, this is the green I speak of,and I must be clear about this, for greenis as fickle as the bodies we live in.This green has exploded over the room and settledgently over the reams of paper, the boxesin the multi-voiced shades of my island.And I sit here, dappled as if the treesabove are the filter over me,and that lime tree, stunted by the entanglementof its roots in the pot, smiles sheepishlyin the corner. I am here thinkingof the sensuality of the dye that covers usand turns us into creatures longing for shadowsor startling light, because I am feeling the news,the chattering noise of a body broken by bullets,by the illogic of why, by the heavy sorrows.Forgive me for asking you to takeme into your verdant backroom,forgive me if I sit quietly in the cornerrocking, maybe, but hoping forearth to hold my vegetable self steady. [End Page 16] Kwame Dawes Kwame Dawes is the author of several books of poetry as well as fiction, criticism, and essays. Dawes is the George W. Holmes University Professor of English and the Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner. He teaches in the Pacific MFA Program and edits the African Poetry Book Series for the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright © 2022 Yale University