Kenyatta Rogers

--After Glenn Ligon’s Stranger in a Village #13

Redactions

When there’s a secret to tell a friend
but you leave out all the important parts.
 
A student asked me if one of the teachers was pregnant
and didn’t believe me when I said she wasn’t.
 
At the Super Bowl
Beyoncé reminded everyone
she was black.
 
I didn’t mean for this to sound like it was a secret,
I walk down alleys sometimes because they’re shortcuts.
 
Remember when Justin Timberlake ripped off Janet Jackson’s brazier?
Remember when all of the Jackson’s got plastic surgery to look alike?
 
Sometimes I feel like I don’t know how to write a poem anymore.
I forget how to spell things, but I was never any good at drawing.
 
My mother keeps a scrap book.
My father has beautiful handwriting.
 
I used to spill that magnetic dust on my notebooks,
blow the rest away and see what words were left.

I Can’t be as Confident as Maggie Nelson

1.
 
I think I’m with a friend I haven’t talked to in ten years.  We’re walking on railroad tracks.  My car rolled down a hill and we ended up in the snow.  We try to reach the top of the hill, but never ask each other if we died.
 
2.
 
I keep broken zippers because I believe I can fix them.  If I can’t someone can.  I keep a recycling can even though I believe everything just ends up in the trash. Sometimes I call people randomly and they think I just want to fuck.
 
3.
 
People always assume I’m lying so I don’t bother thinking of things to make up anymore.  I don’t argue.  My vocabulary is too small.  I don’t care who wins.  Besides I know what it’s like to wake up scared.  Fortunately I forget most of my dreams after 3 days.
 
4.
 
I can’t be as confident as Maggie Nelson.  I wrote about purple for 2 years.  I never discovered anything.  Wave is like a glass ceiling.  But I don’t want to talk about her.  She’s better than me.  Most people are.  I say this all the time.
 
5.
 
I think I’m with a friend.  But I know I don’t know this person.  We are eating grilled cheese sandwiches at a cafe.  We just were there.  We never showed up.  My friend I don’t know offers me a bottled water.  I didn’t see them buy anything.  The seal is broken and it’s still full.
 
6. 
 
I was fired from my job.  They thought I was a child.  I told my supervisor to tell me I was fired.  She said she had to check.  I was able to buy a slice of a chicken pot pie.  I couldn’t find the gift card that she gave me.  I only looked in the obvious places.
--
Kenyatta Rogers earned his MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from Columbia College Chicago. He is a Cave Canem fellow and Breadloaf Work-Study Scholar. He has been nominated twice for both Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes, and his work has been previously published in or is forthcoming from Jubilat, Vinyl, Bat City Review, The Volta among others. He is an Associate Editor with RHINO and currently serves on the Creative Writing Faculty at The Chicago High School for the Arts.