I am usually like a lot livelier.
I feel so heavy.
I feel like watching and listening to Angel.
I feel there are hundreds of voices in the room.
Our fathers and our sons and our brothers and those damn kids
we saw today.
So my son, when he was released for the final time,
he came out.
And I went to hug him.
And I realized that I was really, really thinking
about how to do that hug.
You don't do that.
I mean, it should be a natural thing.
But he was not the same person.
And so this is kind of about that.
And thank you all.
I've had an absolutely amazing time here.
It's been wonderful meeting and talking to everyone.
This project is absolutely astounding.
And I'm really thrilled to be part of it
and doubly thrilled to be part of it
and here reading with Angel.
She's my daughter.
OK.
"Attempt of the Arms Around."
"1, who was that smoldering child with bumpy crown and drip
sex walk, slouching denims with airy ass back in his knees,
unlaced Adidas flopping, swallowing his socks?
Who was that rumbling speak silverfish smile, cocked arm
with the witless burn of white street riding the high muscle?
Who was that bobbing Adam's Apple, that uncorked
steam, chiseled chest wall?
Who shoved my son into this thing?
2, the coolest mom ever.
I whipped Transformers into semis
with flash fingers, memorized their campy names,
spent hours playing soar and whoosh with an 8 and 1/2
foot GI Joe aircraft carrier that I
can't remember affording.
I was tickle monster, boogie bear,
crafter of fantastic bedtime stories,
and your first stumbling dance partner while little Stevie
Wonder bounced us.
Where in your life did your rhythm get lost?
You still dance like a white boy trying
to dance like a Black boy when he's making fun of white boys.
[LAUGHING]
And you were the most beautiful son.
Riotous snaps and loopy grin sailing
through numbers and vowels, conquering that book.
City, fun-- bellowing it over and over at three,
way before little colored boys were supposed to know words.
Look at us go.
We have to work at this.
Here is something to look at.
See it go up--
up, up, up.
And look at this.
It will come down--
down, down, down.
I was so hard willing you strength, so busy
standing at your side that I couldn't catch you
when you fell.
I didn't even hear Chicago.
Go ahead, let her be your sister.
I'll be your mama.
3, my house is on fire and my baby is in the house.
My house is on fire and my baby is in the house.
My house is on fire and my children
are in the house of correction being corrected.
During visits, I touched my mouth to the glass separating
us by a man blurred beneath heels of manufactured muscle.
Mama, I think they're going to kill me in here.
My house is on fire and my children in the house.
What's that smell?
My house is on fire and my children are in the house.
My womb is prepared for this.
If my son is killed in his cell, I will simply birth him again,
already equipped with ankle cuffs
ready to be chained to something, anything--
an idea, a wall, even a man who could be his twin.
I am a huge excuse, a resolution machine, a
shackled a poet with my past chained to my hands.
What she know?
Her boy in jail anyway.
We introduced our children to the heat.
We left them in the house behind locked doors,
mistook their first screams for singing,
popped our hips in the club while television
slapped the blur on their souls and taught them
fuck, shame, and firepower.
Escape was improbable.
They were chained to each other and every link was on fire.
What sparked the flame?
Who lit the match?
What sparked the flame?
Who lit the match?
My house is on fire and my children are in the house.
I do not care.
Who brings the water?
4, they call it jail muscle.
You are impossibly huge on top.
Your biceps balloons.
Your head looks so wrong teetering on your neck.
I have to pull in a breath before I
can attempt my arms around you.
But I cannot link my fingers behind your back.
I wonder what lives there in that small span I cannot reach.
I wonder if that's where yesterday is or was.
Upon closer inspection, I see the sloppiness in all of you,
the construction that was ignored or abandoned,
the petulant put of your belly, stringy calves,
a tooth that aches because it is empty inside.
You are huff and puff, repetitions and iron.
All of you is the result of boredom.
After two years of separate cages, I stand across a room
from you, weighing the option to touch or not touch.
And that first hug is awkward, difficult,
an utter mess because you have so boldly outgrown
the arc of my arms.
You speak in uncertain solos as if you are learning language
from its very first page.
Yeah, I guess so.
No, I-- you see how big my arms are?
I am a fool to your fool.
Yes, I see you are so big.
I don't know how to hold you.
Veins have burst beneath your skin.
You have exploded, gotten so wide.
You look as if you are straining to become a wall.
I imagine under it, my son, flailing screaming for me,
struggling through blood and fat and gristle
toward my failed embrace, needing me as much
as I need him--
you.
Now I recognize only sections of you,
smile cast downward, reddish brown skin, history's mark
in your blood, half steps instead of whole ones,
clipped laugh remembering ma.
Remember what we used to watch the Transformers?
Remember the first book I ever read?
You still have it.
Remember how hard it used to be to comb my hair?
Remember how I used to have to wear a jacket
and tie to school?
Remember that time I went skiing when that famous man took
my picture?
Remember when I got beat up that time?
Remember, remember, remember, remember?
You remember, right?
Let me in somewhere.
Ask me to shave your head, to sweep on hot lather
and hear the blade scrape you clean.
Let me touch my lips to the explosions on your skin.
(CRYING) Make me read you our story,
pretend triumphs and back alleys and Transformers
and stumbled dance and coughing and dead batteries
and the girl who wanted to be your sister.
And look at this.
It will come down--
down, down, down.
And at the end of our story, let us
be standing here, my arms around you,
my fingers straining to meet behind your back.
I will never stop trying to complete this holding.
I need to be completely around you, Damon, so that all of you
is within the mother circle of me.
And giving you up to this world is a choice I have yet to make.