LEAVE DON’T GO AWAY (LIVE)
KAMERYN ALEXA CARTER
Dejohnette’s rhythm trembles beneath
my morning. Whether by the adumbral
gardens adjacent the museum,
or as a pendant figure in the top floor
window of my office building:
This is a tune about ardor,
though like any obedient poetic
subject, I try best to rebuke
the announcement of meaning.
But tenderness likes to make
itself plain: pricked victim’d finger
blooming the color of love-lies-bleeding.
They’re coming to put my landline
in at week’s end. They’re coming for me,
can’t come up for air. But there is more
August yet. More unbidden velocities.
Swear I’ll do right by my heart rate,
whatsoever the pharmaceutical visions.
Swear I’m working on my embouchure.
There is no decadent decoding.
No modular mobility. Chips fall at risk
at random. The only logic is in Threadgill’s
wind.
Kameryn Alexa Carter is a black poet. She is a founding co-editor of Emergent Literary, a journal for black and brown artists. Her work has appeared in 68to05, Bennington Review, Phoebe, Torch Literary Arts, Bat City Review, The Best American Poetry 2023 and elsewhere. They were the winner of a 2023 Pushcart Prize, and are currently at work on New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh for Bloomsbury’s 33 ⅓ series. You can find them online at kamerynalexacarter.com.