A Poem in which I Try to Express My Glee at the Music My Friend Has Given Me

Because I must not

get up to throw down in a café in the Midwest,

I hold something like a clownfaced herd

of bareback and winged elephants

stomping in my chest,

I hold a thousand

kites in a field loosed from their tethers

at once, I feel

my skeleton losing track

somewhat of the science I’ve made of tamp,

feel it rising up shriek and groove,

rising up a river guzzling a monsoon,

not to mention the butterflies

of the loins, the hummingbirds

of the loins, the thousand

dromedaries of the loins, oh body

of sunburst, body

of larkspur and honeysuckle and honeysuccor

bloom, body of treetop holler,

oh lightspeed body

of gasp and systole, the mandible’s ramble,

the clavicle swoon, the spine’s

trillion teeth oh, drift

of hip oh, trill of ribs,

oh synaptic clamor and juggernaut

swell oh gutracket

blastoff and sugartongue

syntax oh throb and pulse and rivulet

swing and glottal thing

and kick-start heart and heel-toe heart

ooh ooh ooh a bullfight

where the bull might

take flight and win!

Ross Gay

Ross Gay was born in Youngstown, Ohio. He earned a BA from Lafayette College, an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, and a PhD in English from Temple University.

His honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Cave Canem, and the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference.

He is an editor with the chapbook presses Q Avenue and Ledge Mule Press and is a founding editor, with Karissa Chen and Patrick Rosal, of the online sports magazine Some Call it Ballin’. He teaches at Indiana University and in Drew University’s low-residency MFA program.

Source: www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ross-gay