WEBVTT

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I'm going to read one
more from the book

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just because I talked
to my son today,

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and I promised him I
would read this one.

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And then I'll go back to
poems from the project.

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"My son, budding dreadhead,
has taken a break

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from obsessively twisting
and waxing his naps,

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swelling his delts,
and busting rhymes

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with no aim, backbeat, or
future beyond the common room.

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For want of a plumper
canteen, the child

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has laid claim to a
jailhouse vocation.

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I'm the writer,
Mama, he tells me.

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That's what I'm
known for in here.

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In my kitchen,
clutching the receiver,

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I want to laugh, because
my son has always

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been the writer,
muttering witness

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to the underbelly,
his rebel heart

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overthumping, his
bladed lines peppered

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with ready-market
gangster swerve

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and cringing in
awe of themselves.

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I want to laugh, but I
must commit to my focus.

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I must be typical,
single, black,

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with an 18-to-30-year-old
male child behind bars.

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How deftly I have learned the
up/back of that tiring Watusi.

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I guess it's a poem.

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You can throw it
away if you want.

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And oh, I'd ache at what he'd
done, the bottoms he'd found,

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the clutch he claimed on
what refused to be held,

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the queries scraped
from surface.

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What are you, child,
I'd whisper as I read.

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Could there be a dream
just temporarily deferred

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wallowing in those drooping
denims and triple-X sweats,

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could there be a
poet wrapped tight

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against the world in
those swaddling clothes?

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He was the writer then,
but now, reluctant resident

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of the Middlesex County House of
Corrections, he is the writer,

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sanctioned by the
baddest of badasses

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because he has trumpeted
the power of twisting

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verb and noun not only to
say things, but to get shit.

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They paying me to write love
letters to their ladies.

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I mean, I write poems
if they want that.

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This big musclehead brother
everybody be sweating even

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asked me to write a letter
to his mama on his birthday.

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They call him Scribe.

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They bring him their
imploded dreams,

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letters from their
women-in-waiting tired

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of waiting.

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On deadline, he spins
impossible sugar

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onto the precise
lines of legal pads,

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pens June/moon dripping enough
to melt a b-girl's hard heart.

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He drops to scarred
knees, moans and whimpers

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in stilted verse,
coaxing last ink

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from a passed-around
ballpoint, making it wail.

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Please, please, babygirl,
don't be talking

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about not waiting out my time.

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Only five years left.

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That ain't much.

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Hey Scribe, Scribe,
Scribe, hook me up, man.

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I ain't got no answer for
this shit she be talking.

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Tattooed in riotous colors, they
circle him in the common room,

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whispering to him under the
surface of their reputations.

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I got a job for you,
Scribe, got a job.

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When the letters are
crafted just right,

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copied over and over
and edited for the real,

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the customers stumble through
the aloud reading of them,

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scared of their own new voices.

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Too dazzled to
demand definition,

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they scrunch scarred
foreheads and whistle

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through gold caps at the
three-syllable kickverbs.

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I'm going to trust
you, they tell my son.

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I'm going to have to
trust you on this.

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They don't want this softness.

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They don't want it.

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You know, Scribe, Scribe, damn,
damn, man, this shit sings!

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You blessed,
brother, you blessed.

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I mean, I don't know--

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I don't know what you're saying,
man, but it sure sound good.

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So I'm going to trust
you on this, man.

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I got to trust you on this.

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Then they copy the
words in their own hand

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and send spun silk shoutouts
to the freewalking world,

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hoping that a disillusioned
girlfriend or a neglected

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mother or a wife-in-waiting
tired of waiting

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will slit open the envelope
and feel a warm repentant soul

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spill out into her hands.

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And I must admit, as a
fellow poet, I envy my son,

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this being necessary.

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Think of it.

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Which of us would refuse
to try on the first face

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of a killer, our life
teetering on every line?

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Wouldn't we want to craft a new
front for everyone just once,

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to rewrite one moment
of a life story,

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to beg for mercy on behalf
of someone who has never

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known life on his knees?

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And at the end of
our flowery betrayal,

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that white-heat
moment of no sound.

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In the steamy pocket
of it, we'd need

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one person to rise up slow, full
of spit and menace, to say, OK.

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OK, then.

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I'm going to trust
you on that one.

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I'm going to have to--

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I'm going to have to
trust you on that."

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[APPLAUSE]

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