by Norman Minnick
Appendix
after Yusef Komunyakaa
I’m a bone rattler
a low baller
listening to Conflict
and Millions of Dead Cops—
What makes America so straight
And me so bent?
I’m an alley sloucher
fed on Reaganomics: I am
multi-collateral,
all cards on the table.
I wear my heart upon my sleeve
for crows to tease.
I’m a tomb wanderer.
I’m a quadruple threat.
I’m a weak metaphor
for the opportunity
to strike or strike out.
Desire
Diogenes pointed out
that although a man
may keep a lion in a cage,
may tame the lion
with food and a whip,
may name the lion,
may soothe the lion
with gentle words,
the lion owns the man.
Same for me, who
owns nothing of which
I desire, and can only
restrain it and feed it
and give it a name.
Norman Minnick is the author of three collections of poetry and editor of several anthologies, most recently, The Lost Etheridge: Uncollected Poems of Etheridge Knight. His poems and essays have been published in The Georgia Review, The Sun, World Literature Today, The Writer’s Chronicle, and New World Writing, among others. He was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. Visit www.buzzminnick.com for more information.