The Oxford Book of American Poetry, David Lehman editor, John Brehm associate editor

2006

Please purchase from your local bookseller

The Oxford Book of American Poetry, David Lehman editor, John Brehm associate editor

2006

“The book is not only a sound historical survey, but also gives the reader a powerful taste of poetry’s impact upon the wider world.”
—The Economist

 

FACING IT

My black face fades,

hiding inside the black granite.

I said I wouldn’t

dammit: No tears.

I’m stone. I’m flesh.

My clouded reflection eyes me

like a bird of prey, the profile of night

slanted against morning. I turn

this way—the stone lets me go.

I turn that way—I’m inside

the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

again, depending on the light

to make a difference.

I go down the 58,022 names,

half-expecting to find

my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson;

I see the booby trap’s white flash.

Names shimmer on a woman’s blouse

but when she walks away

the names stay on the wall.

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s

wings cutting across my stare.

The sky. A plane in the sky.

A white vet’s image floats

closer to me, then his pale eyes

look through mine. I’m a window.

He’s lost his right arm

inside the stone. In the black mirror

a woman’s trying to erase names:

No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair.

 

–Yusef Komunyakaa