Libretto

Abstract

Libretto Gregory Pardlo (bio) Mister Softee plays the olio while my flesh Bears the strap of the folding chair. Forearms visor evening short as field lights luff And crisp from stanchions cropped and humming Softly on high. Someone's brought along the old Chagrin, sent it up like a signal flare triggering Someone else's cousin to read its portent, but who As yet has not? The living's been easy, the fish are Battered and fried and we drink malt liquor where The shuttlecock lands at our feet. Each mother's Daughter is a gospel floating on hips and I ache Like hands mining cooler ice in this town of how Many cavaliers. In this way we feed ourselves To coolers until they are empty. Feed me seltzer And the sun-stained egg salad. Lay me in the long Shade of the scoreboard, fraught and labile, Soon to rise in the distant drum of a car Stereo, rib-sauce still staining my lips. Gregory Pardlo Gregory Pardlo, who teaches at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York, has published poems in a number of periodicals and anthologies, including Seneca Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Hawaii Review, and Callaloo. He received the MFA in poetry from New York University. Copyright © 2004 Charles H. Rowell