Deliverance

Poetry
Written By Jericho Brown

Though I have not shined shoes for it,
Have not suffocated myself handsome
In a tight, bright tie, Sunday comes
Again to me as it did in childhood.

We few left who listen to the radio leave
Ourselves available to surprise. We pray
Unaware of prayer. We are an ugly people.

Forgive me, I do not wish to sing
Like Tramaine Hawkins, but Lord if I could
Become the note she belts halfway into
The fifth minute of "The Potter's House"

When black vocabulary heralds home-
Made belief: For any kind of havoc, there is
Deliverance! She means that even after I am

Not listening. I am not a saint
Because I keep trying to be a sound, something
You will remember
Once you’ve lived enough not to believe in heaven. 

 
Jericho Brown

Jericho Brown is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His poems have appeared in Fence, Jubilat, The New Criterion, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Best American Poetry anthologies. His first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. He serves as poetry editor for The Believer. He is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University in Atlanta.

Previous

Flying Colors
Next

Thursday Morning Garbage Pick Up