DIGGING IN NEBRASKA

Poetry
Written By Kwame Dawes

It is May and it has come to this. My kingdom
of parceled-out plots, the neighbor riding
his mower, the yelping dogs, the entitled cats striding
across the cropped face of gray sidewalks. A bird’s wing
rots at the mouth of the grand drain, and here I swing
from underserved peace to despair after gliding
through this decade of rightful living, hiding
away all blissful filth, the vibrancy of the guilt-thing. 

Picture me, rake and shovel, standing here,
an armed mid-American dreamer of a billion
points of light—that lie of that old chevalier.
I dig deep, searching for worms, and turn up blood sillion—
yes, that word borrowed for sure, but not too dear
a price for the flame of this sinful sulfidic vermillion.

Kwame Dawes

Kwame Dawes is the author of eighteen collections of poetry, most recently Duppy Conqueror (Copper Canyon Press), as well as two novels, numerous anthologies, and plays. He has won Pushcart Prizes, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Emmy, and was the 2013 awardee of the Paul Engel Prize. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he is a Chancellor's Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner. Dawes is the Associate Poetry Editor at Peepal Tree Press, the Series Editor of the University of South Carolina Poetry Series, and the Founding Director of the African Poetry Book Fund. Dawes teaches in the Pacific MFA program and is the Director of the biennial Calabash International Literary Festival.

Previous

REVISIONS OF A BURNING BUSH
Next

Carework