Surrender

A mercy puts a thing
on my palm and
it is my childhood
Its tiny endless moth city
Its rind like grace
or tenderness or sorrow
∞

In the red brick room, my father cries.
His cries are small, lonely animals.
I carry them with me
like an inheritance.
∞

Once, I ran out
of a room
because the song
on the radio
was a fist
in the nook of my neck.
I stood
on the street
quietly weeping.

Though when a woman said to me:
“Child, are you well?
I said it was the waters
within me that wanted to
make themselves known.
∞

Some nights are like that. They do not let you go
until they have broken into the secret July in your heart where you hide all things.
∞

All I wanted
was to be home,
so I dipped myself
under the earth.
By which I mean
I entered the subway station.
∞

It was there I heard him.
A man that was also a sound.
He was singing. Tree
branches broke
inside his voice.
∞

There was, in his chorus, the quietude of a thing that was coming to an end.
This song he was singing, he said it was not a dirge.
Though he sang it to a thing that was dying.
∞

Which in a way
was the kind of song
my father sang
as he lay dying.

My father said
his song was not a dirge.
Though he sang it
to a thing that was dying
in himself.
He said son.
my song is a joy.
But a joy with sharp knives.
∞

So, my laughter is a thing with a sharp edge.
And my joy a trembling.
∞

This man I saw,
his locks of hair
which ran down
to his neck
were the
visible borders
of a country
that was inside him.
And the sound he made
was the secret language
of a nation unto which
immigrants were called.
∞

It was as though I had sliced through the ocean and arrived here,
only to run into my childhood.

And I did not want to make myself open. But I was made open
for certain songs do not ask your permission.
∞

I raised my hands
and moved toward him,
naked before the song.
I said:
Dear Music, dear childhood.
Take me.
Take me.