Three New Poems by Danez Smith

Liturgy with Blood All Over

differences

once, there was a boy
who learned to sing
who then learned not to sing
once, there was a boy
who heard another boy singing
then told him to stop
these are the same boy
this is every boy
another story: once, a boy
loved summer & so moved
to the sun
same story: once, a boy
ran from winter but could
not shake the dead trees
same story: once, a boy
stood in the woods
until he became it
same story: a boy is a tree
same story: my mother cries
whenever she sees a tree
//
Boy 1: We made love.
Boy 2: I was experimenting.
Boy 1: He loves me
Boy 2: He lives close
Boy 1: We have something between us.
Boy 2: He is warmest inside.
Boy 1: He’s clean.
Boy 2: I’m clean.
//
another story: last week a bird
flew into the window. He lived,
but he would not fly hours later
I did with a rock
what the lord would not.
same story: once, I taught
a bird a new flight, with a stone
I made stranger wings.
//
answer: I did not love him
answer: the curve of his shoulder at dusk
answer: It helps to lie
answer: like the iron in your veins gathering into a bullet
answer: the pale yellow of his teeth
answer: it was Thursday
answer: my blues turn red when they hit the air
answer: yes, you’re right
//
a night without questions
is a night where everything is a gun
//
Someone killed a black boy & got away with it
I am the murderer/the victim/the evidence
//
can say i’ve never had my heart broken
can’t say my heart doesn’t pump a broken formula
i have no equations for my new math
no addition for what in me multiplies
i was negative.
he was negative.
we made a positive thing.

Bussy Blues

haven’t eaten all day
so i can be the feast
be a thing empty & filled
a vase of stale water
& the next second, wet wreckage
i can make oblivion look like a rose
he tells me to look back at it
& i turn to salt
do tops know how much prep
goes into being ruled?
we hoe the good soil, raise the gate,
flood the city for this one lonely steed
how dare they not love us!
isn’t love to say i made room
in my body for your body?
all these brown boys mistake me
for their hands. white ones see
a receipt on my back.
niggas better recognize
i’m God.
my stomach rumbles
i eat a man in reverse.

Originally published in Literary Hub.