On the field outside my home, a field
hospital, in an actual field, the great American
Oak on one end, the Tupelo on the other.
They have laid white tarp over the boggy grass
and raised a series of insulated tents.
It has blossomed overnight like a dark circus,
machines to dehumidify the air,
cots like dollhouse furniture and intricate
machines to keep alive those whose bodies
are resigned to leaving. An orchestra
of discipline and calculated faith,
of power cords and outlets maneuvered
around trees, of hoping rain holds
and spring reads the room: the human beings
are desperate. They have built a hospital
where, in other days, I walked my dog,
counting no blessing but the one I chased,
who startled strangers on blankets
before stretching on the grass. How happy
I was not knowing how happy, walking
the path along the field’s perimeter,
watching the sky flare its oranges and pinks,
reflect a cool purple off the leaves.
Idling in goodness, letting the mind loose
over the life let it. I thought forever,
did not think, for so much of gladness
was thoughtlessness. Now I mourn
the hours from the safety of my health,
stand a little lost at what proceeds
the mourning. They are building a hospital—
the whir of engines stirs the animals,
a melody, a dirge the robins sing.

Maya C. Popa

I can’t undo all I have done to myself,
what I have let an appetite for love do to me.

I have wanted all the world, its beauties
and its injuries; some days,
I think that is punishment enough.

Often, I received more than I’d asked,

which is how this works—you fish in open water
ready to be wounded on what you reel in.

Throwing it back was a nightmare.
Throwing it back and seeing my own face

as it disappeared into the dark water.

Catching my tongue suddenly on metal,
spitting the hook into my open palm.

Dear life: I feel that hook today most keenly.

Would you loosen the line—you’ll listen

if I ask you,

if you are the sort of life I think you are.

Maya C. Popa

When my situation ain’t improvin’
I’m tryin’ to murder everything movin’
And I do anything necessary for her
So don’t let the necessary occur.

JAY-Z (excerpts from “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” and “Bonnie & Clyde”)

We bring nothing into this world
except our gradual ability
to create it, out of all that vanishes
and all that will outlast us.

Les Murray

Life is the bitch, and death is her sister
Sleep is the cousin, what a fuckin’ family picture
You know Father Time, we all know Mother Nature
It’s all in the family, but I am of no relation
No matter who’s buyin’, I’m a celebration
Black and white diamonds, fuck segregation

Lil Wayne (an excerpt from “6 Foot 7 Foot”)

Letting go
In order to hold on
I gradually understand
How poems are made.

There is a place the fear must go.
There is a place the choice must go.
There is a place the loss must go.
The leftover love.
The love that spills out
Of the too full cup
And runs and hides
Its too full self
In shame.

I gradually comprehend
How poems are made.
To the upbeat flight of memories.
The flagged beats of the running
Heart.

I understand how poems are made.
They are the tears
That season the smile.
The stiff-neck laughter
That crowds the throat.
The leftover love.
I know how poems are made.

There is a place the loss must go.
There is a place the gain must go.
The leftover love.

Alice Walker

Preparations begin now, in the middle of my life—
death was born with me, didn’t expect to change languages,
might not know when it is called. Sometimes English sits on the surface of the skin.

We are water, we are rivers of descent;
gravity is inevitable yet grievable.
Mourn as you like, death is another migration.

Bring the body home and gently lay it down on its back,
bind tightly the hands and feet of the corpse,
do this to keep it from running away like a lonely child-

carry the coat it wore (when it was a person) to the roof-
a flag of surrender, a signal flag to the spirit world, new arrival;
call out the name of the dead three times.

Perfume the bath water-the death of a thousand flowers-
comb the hair and catch what falls,
what was grown from the body must accompany the body.

Manicure the fingernails and toenails,
carefully reserve the nail trimmings,
the hair and nails are to be collected into five pouches for the coffin.

Obtain a spoon made from a willow tree, it is a lightweight hardwood,
not heavy in the mouth-
feed the corpse three spoonfuls of uncooked rice: one thousand, two thousand, three thousand bushels.

Slide metal coins into the mouth-the spirit journey can be costly, the way long-
cloak the body in the death dress of hemp or silk,

envelop the body with a quilted cloth, and bind the body with ropes seven times.

Transport the body on a decorated bier out of the house-for this you need the living-

observe it float heavily toward the gate. Not unlike a boat
the bier is decorated with fierce dragons and phoenixes; colorful dolls guard the dead.

On the way out of the household premises, lower the bier three times-
the dead’s final departure from home is marked with this ritual bowing.

At the grave, the shaman will exorcise evil spirits from the site. Pay the shaman.

Submerge the coffin in the open ground, it has already been emptied, given its duty,
yes, like another mouth, or a box for a smaller box-one by one,
the ground is a wound that heals, that embraces its lost materials.

Sun Yung Shin

Just so you remember who you dealin’ with
The purest snow, we sellin’ white privilege
Designer drugs will turn niggas limitless
Designer clothes, these hoes losing innocence
The book of blow, just know I’m the Genesis.

Open the box, it’s like ten Christmases
My folks in the box is serving life sentences
I live in a world that never leaves witnesses
Just so you remember who you dealin’ with.

Pusha T (excerpts from “Just So You Remember”)

O Love this happened or it did not.
In a room with green walls

my son was born. The cord was torn
too soon, so they cut off

his head to save his heart. He lived
for a long time.

For a long time there was no breath or cry.
When finally he spoke,

he spoke the wide, whorled leaves of corn.
He spoke the crickets

in clusters beneath the sheaves, he sang
the soil in. He sang the wind

in the dune and hush of ebb tide. Some say
he died. Some say he died.

Rebecca Foust

I could hear something from the kitchen
where I stood paring apples for the pie
planned to mark the moment
of my 10-year-old’s playdate, his first
since the move and our first time
with a troop of boys over to trample
the flowerbeds, tear down the old treehouse
and, whooping and laughing,
strip the citrus trees bare. Boys will be boys,
I thought, so so so seduced by the plural-
my son for this day not alone,
but this sound was different.
Not the glorious cacophony
of boys-being-boys, but just one boy-my boy-
lying face down in the dirt
while a hail of green oranges rained down.

I helped him up, wiped his face,
and broke up the circle of boys,
boys with eyes cast down and sometimes
sickled sideways to wink or grin in a way
they thought I couldn’t see. I had a choice
then: make a scene and send them home?
Or, somehow allow them to stay?

There was the pie, and the desolate day ahead,
the desolate tomorrow, and the chain
of desolate yesterdays slung slack behind.

There was my son for whom,
it being his first playdate since the move,
this was a normal playdate, and who,
when I asked, said, You can’t
send them home-they’re my friends!
There was the ER Doc who’d told me
to go home where no one would have to try
to save him, and his nurse, whose glass voice
asked me twice, have you ever prayed?
I needed them on board, and later, the teachers
who wanted to transfer or expel him.
His Sunday-night stomachaches, and the time
I saw him at recess in the bushes, hiding
his eyes so he would not be seen.

So there was all that, and the here-and-now
of a child unable to fathom malice or guile
and able to forgive anyone of anything.
There was also the pie. And, God forgive me,
I let those boys stay.
I practically begged them to stay.

Rebecca Foust