From “Winehouse”

by Kevin Young
Issue no. 204 (Spring 2013)

The world is your lawyer.
Pawn-shop pearls.
Hair like telegraph wire.
My body my bed,
unmade. My skin’s
my twin, inked

These arms of mine

& already written
like my obit. Bouffant
headstone high.
What doesn’t shine?
I have cats for eyes.
For breakfast
my own fist. In black
I dress

They are lonely

in a looking glass.
Or a shot.
I dance like a thought.
Like a lie
I been caught. What
I am is what I’m not—

O how grateful I will be.
Hungry as a hangover.
You know our nails
are the same stuff
as a rattlesnake tail?
Venom cobras cold
through my veins.

I ain’t got
seventy days.

I sleep like a storm.
I sing till
I’m warm.
Mortal, my hair coils
above my head. Smile
red as my eyes.
Even snake charmer
hands are holy

I ain’t got
seventy days.

& bitten. Snaggle-
toothed, beautiful, blue
as a vein, I can sing
my tail off. A fortnight
later I’ll grow
back another.

I ain’t got
seventy days.

I’m living on borrowed wine.
Last of the light.
Only I
seem to mind.
I sleep to see
what I might find.

Yes I been black
but when I come back

I want to be anonymous
as America. As famous.
Market my words.
I been treading so long
this water into wine—
why fight? My tongue hurts.
Even with death I flirt.

And if my daddy
thinks I’m fine

I’m in love with the light. How it
spills across all it touches, burns
& blooms. I cave. I parade. I quail.
For somewhere I’ve set sail,
three sheets to the wind. Don’t
tell my mother where I been.

I said No,
No, No.