Things No One Knows

By Wanda Coleman
overcome by the stink of mildewed wash, i have
been three months behind in my rent for thirty years. my
countrymen do not love me. even my lines have
lines. we are getting old in a city where the old are
invisible. i have nothing new to eat and barely five minutes
to use the jane. and less time than that to revisit my
father’s grave. i’ve worn the same underwear for fifteen
of those thirty years and some pieces longer than that

writing friends is a luxury, enemies a necessity. my car
was stripped and stolen months ago and i have no
money with which to repair or replace it. my mentors have
exiled me to the outskirts of nappy literacy. my wallet is
dying of militant brain cancer. my lust for my country
is frigid. the light excludes me and there is
no degree for what is learned in the dark

i am too clumsy to steal big. there is a boogie man in
New York City who conspires against and spreads
rumors about my lost lip. i am so economically crippled
even my begging cup has mold sprouting in its well. my
son has mistaken me for a dragon and his history teachers keep
trying to hose out these flames in my mouth. i do not
attend my high school class reunions because too many of
my classmates died in Vietnam or in the liquor lockers
of America or in those classrooms long ago. there is
a boogiewoman in Oberlin who conspires against me, her
jealousy inspired by my imaginary imaginings

i am trapped in the hold of my greedy grief
and expected to keep circling. i expect my son to escape
and my husband to die during exquisite crisis. the federal
bureau of pajamas is after my hot cross buns. i expect to
awaken from sleep soon. i expect my banana nut bread to
go stale and uneaten. i expect to die poemless and to be 
cremated in state ovens. i expect my ashes
to be scattered like pollen, to take wing on the wind

like buddhaflies

Copyright Credit: Wanda Coleman, "Things No One Knows" from Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems. Copyright © 2020 by Wanda Coleman.  Reprinted by permission of The Estate of Wanda Coleman, Black Sparrow / David R Godine, Publisher, Inc., godine.com.
Source: Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems (Black Sparrow Press (Godine), 2020)