Welcome to The Rumpus’s National Poetry Month project. We’ll be running a new poem from a different poet each day for the month of April.
Skin Like Brick Dust
In bed, your back curved
to answer the heat of my holding
& Harlem was barely awake below us
when a half-broken building
gave in. First, a few loose bricks,
then decades crashed to the street
just as a bus pulled up. Passengers,
choking on dust, rushed
to escape the wrecked weight
of someone else’s memory.
Two blocks beyond gravity,
I pressed into you, into you & away
from all the breaking. I didn’t know
your name, so I kissed one
into your mouth. Told myself
he is my body but you
were already on your way
out into the sirens.
If you like what the Rumpus is doing for National Poetry Month, you’ll probably like this multimedia anthology of original poems we’ve run at The Rumpus over the last three years. Available only for iPad. Check it out!
