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~ fall 2oo8 ~ 
issue #11

archives: remica bingham

• Veteran's Song: Sestina in Red

• Floral Attendants: Great-Granddaughters

• Ode to Walt Whitman in the Shadow of Lorca

• What Does the “A” Stand For?

• Playing Possum

• Bio

 

Veteran’s Song: Sestina in Red

--After Martha Modena Vertreace

She loved to hear Miles blowing crimson—
the tint of his horn changing
from midnight to dawn, time
shifting between notes—the living,
breathing, hungry ache
of trumpet unknown, unseen.

Her father forced her to listen, to see—
often rubbing vinyl against her cheek until deep rose
flowered her skin. Some nights her ears ached
as he blew unmuted change—the loss
of legs in war, of her mother, of the will to live—
all things he heard when Miles kept time.

At thirteen, in the kitchen, while sprinkling thyme
and basil on thawed fish, she thought of the sea.
The kiss of dark ocean ebbing life
from her eager body. Forgetting the fire
on the stove beneath her hand, her flesh changed
from sepia to burning pink, leaving loss, steady ache.

When ice wasn’t enough to soothe the aching
wound, her father wasted no time,
gathered every jar he owned until all the change
he’d saved for years filled his fatigues. Before anyone saw,
they heard me comin’, he joked, while dressing her vermillion
palm, searching swollen fingers for life.

More than his screaming war-torn dreams, she relived
moments like these, when no heartache
or memory of distant blood
returned to interfere with time.
She remembered him asking, weeks later, to see
the new skin gauzing her palm; this his small prayer for change.

As she blossomed, he christened her his changeling,
using nostalgia and music to color their lives.
A man knows what he sees,
but believes what he hears, he’d say spinning Miles and she’d ache
to know either man’s kind of blue, how much time
it took to birth cool indigo then scarlet.

And now, in the timeless wake of change, she can no longer see
their faces, but returns reverent and aching,
listening to the flushed timbre of their lives.

© Remica Bingham

Floral Attendants: Great-Granddaughters

Lilies pulled from her funeral wreath
pushed into unsteady hands
not willing to prick themselves
yet with the scent of death.

Blossoms in their palms on Sunday, tracing
their first steps to an unremembered place
guarded by poplars and dragonflies,
serpents looking for dense paths home.

Flowers handled much like her delicate head—
nostalgic fingers cradle silken silver ribbons
like her hair and, recalling her gold skin,
find resemblance in a yellow rose.

Their wild-blooming exists only moments—
pulled from life to honor the lifeless.
After sunset, the last longing petal hangs
toward the earth like a dry tongue.

© Remica Bingham

 

Ode to Walt Whitman in the Shadow of Lorca

I will soar through the cosmos
racing across Saturn’s rings
Io and Orion’s belt
screaming for acceptance
I will entreat others
to follow me as I dance
to el ritmo de duende
I will sing the body electric
even if no one is listening
I will rejoice in me.

Leaves of grass are dying
all around us and children
won’t know the things
their parents have forgotten.
They mispronounce themselves,
stumble and fall into the crowd
on their way down.

Last night I made love
to a woman    she held
out her hand    nails
painted the color of flamingos
and let me kiss it
on her porch while
a neighborhood boy
mowed her lawn.
As we undressed and hung
our clothes along the banister
he turned to watch    we didn’t mind.

I have black friends and white friends
red and brown and azure blue
I am la vie boheme at times
Yesterday I marched in a parade
with people I didn’t know.
I am obliged to fight when others are denied.
I know men have died for chances like this.

This morning two men raped
a four-year-old girl    ripped
her Easter dress from her body
and pink doll from her hand
shoved a lime in her mouth
to keep her from screaming.
A teenager birthed a child
in the bathroom of her high school
cut her own cord    drowned it
in the toilet and left it there
floating.

Tomorrow    a young man will be lured
into a truck    taunted by his peers
beaten until blood    fills his mouth
and rusts his braces    tied
to a barbed-wire fence    left
to watch the sunrise for the last time.

Despite all this
you would have believed in us.
You celebrated the us yet to come,
toiled in the fields until your seeds
were planted and watered.
Your grass    dwindling now
withers in libraries and thrift shops
near Harlequin and Cliff.

Today    like you    I will look past
our faults, glory in what we could become.
Imagine what would happen
if everyone woke up thirsty
and came to your well for a drink—
I see the stars approaching
the planets axis suddenly
tilting left    angels reaching down
with Heaven’s dipper
begging, begging
to be quenched.

© Remica Bingham

 

What Does the “A” Stand For?

--After E. Ethelbert Miller and A. Van Jordan

I doubt Adam though I could imagine you Jah’s
early specimen, mirror of himself; or Antony,
Cleopatra’s love jones, thrusting her name into mouths
of men and jazz legends, leaving song for centuries.

I am thinking Asa, a healer laying hands
on the future of his people, dreaming
in decades, marching a salve;
or Aaron, an enlightened brother fluid in speech,
soothing the aching mouth of a sibling.

It may be Alexander, I could call you the Great,
watch you conquer Persia, wash over Egypt like the Nile;
or Abraham, you seem like the type who,
even at one hundred, could rock a barren woman
‘til the children of Israel crowd her bones,
raise nations with your hands and hips.

It could be Ali, delivering blows aimed to cripple,
fists clenched in the name of Allah;
or August, a virtuoso with a pick and a box,
only need one string to coax a fine black bottom
or tickle those bones ‘til angels cry mercy.

Above all I favor Apollo
ancient poet, prophet of light,
strong-armed son of Zeus.
You’d father children who tame
Hades with their tongue, turn fleeing flesh
into bark, love into stone at Delphi.
Caress Calliope, Coronis and Sybil, send
seven swans swimming with the coming of your birth.
Nectar and ambrosia would only have to tip
your newborn tongue and you’d rise,
full grown, a man kissed
with the wind of gods.

© Remica Bingham

 

Playing Possum

On an endless road trip, my mother’s favorite
song drifted through the car speakers.

She sang, looked over at my father
and took his free hand in hers.

I sat in the backseat, pretending
I wasn’t a witness to their love.

© Remica Bingham