Sherwin Bitsui Poems

When we are out of gas,
a headache haloes the roof,
darkening the skin of everyone who has a full tank.
...

When we river,
blood fills cracks in bullet shells,
oars become fingers scratching windows into dawn,
and faces are stirred from mounds of mica.
...

1.
The ice hook untwists inside the whirlwind like a tail.

A raven's rib ripped from the electric socket
heats the palm,
...

They inherit a packet of earth
hear its coins clank in a tin box

push them aside
...

What land have you cast from the blotted-out region of your face?

What nation stung by watermarks was filmed out of extinction and brought forth resembling frost?

What offspring must jump through the eye of birth to be winked at when covered with brick sweat?
...

In a cornfield at the bottom of a sandstone canyon,
wearing the gloves of this song tightly over closed ears;
the bursting sun presses licks of flame
...

Mother thought:
First we will run, then we will walk.
She asked, "Do we ramble when we speak in tongues?"

Her lack of supervision made this happe
...

He was there- before the rising action rose to meet this acre cornered by thirst, before birds swallowed bathwater and exploded in midsentence, before the nameless began sipping the blood of ravens from the sun's knotted atlas. He was there, sleeping with one eye clamped tighter than the other,
...

Tonight I draw a raven's wing inside a circle
measured a half second
before it expands into a hand.
I wrap its worn grip over our feet
...

1.
I haven't _________
since smoke dried to salt in the lakebed,
since crude oil dripped from his parting slogan,
the milk's sky behind it,
...