of Aretha, with so many bodies built
upon her own. I know the ways that grief
can gnaw to gouge you hollow—gluttonous
and unashamed, she slurped the bleakest, most
absurd buffets of lard gone gray, until
her mirror bloomed with spillage. How would you
have done your keening? Every day a child
collapses on a boulevard, his edges chalked
and blooded. Someone braids a noose for joy
or drops a knee to thin a Negro neck.
It's Pinned Above My Desk—That Picture
Patricia Smith
Patricia Smith is the author of eight books of poetry, including Unshuttered and Incendiary Art, winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. She is the most recent recipient of the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, and she teaches at Princeton University.