POEM OF THE DAY BY YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA

Blue Dementia

In the days when a man

would hold a swarm of words

inside his belly, nestled

against his spleen, singing.

In the days of night riders

when life tongued a reed

till blues & sorrow song

called out of the deep night:

Another man done gone.

Another man done gone.

In the days when one could lose oneself

all up inside love that way,

& then moan on the bone

till the gods cried out in someone's sleep.

Today,

already I've seen three dark-skinned men

discussing the weather with demons

& angels, gazing up at the clouds

& squinting down into iron grates

along the fast streets of luminous encounters.

I double-check my reflection in plate glass

& wonder, Am I passing another

Lucky Thompson or Marion Brown

cornered by a blue dementia,

another dark-skinned man

who woke up dreaming one morning

& then walked out of himself

dreaming? Did this one dare

to step on a crack in the sidewalk,

to turn a midnight corner & never come back

whole, or did he try to stare down a look

that shoved a blade into his heart?

I mean, I also know something

about night riders & catgut. Yeah,

honey, I know something about talking with ghosts.

-Yusef Komunyakaa