3.5
White Blood
ByPublisher Description
Prelude
You’re on a train & your ancestors are in the Quiet Car.
The Quiet Car is locked with a password you can’t decrypt.
You’re a professional password decrypter, but your ancestors are demolition experts.
You’re wearing black tactical gear & your ancestors are wearing black tactical gear.
You’re dashing through each compartment, slamming doors open, while your ancestors lay small explosives.
As heat expands within the carriage, you escape through a picture window.
You climb to the top of the train & your ancestors rappel down the sides.
You’re rappelling down one side of the train when you glimpse your ancestors above you.
They leap from carriage to carriage as if weightless, as if drifting, as if curling tongues of snow.
You cling to the side of the train as each of your ancestors lifts away from you.
They float into the cloud of themselves.
In the rushing light, you perceive them as hundreds slow snake doctors.
O—
you begin.
"The Shop at Monticello"
I’m a black body in this Commonwealth, which turned black bodies
into money. Now, I have money to spend on little trinkets to remind me
of this fact. I’m a money machine & my body constitutes the common
wealth. I spend & spend in order to support this. I support this mountain
with my black money. Strange mountain in late bloom. Strange mansion
built on mountains of wealth. I spend so much, I’m late for the tour
where I’m a blooming black dollar sign. I look good in the Dome Room
prowling its high-gloss floor. It’s common to desire such flooring
for my own home, but owning a home is still strange. My blackness
makes strange tools for a living, rakes the strangeness like dirt. I like to
rake my hands over merchandise: bayberry votives, English hyssop
in crisp sachets. I like this Engraved Pewter Bookmark so much suddenly
I line up for it, clenching my upright fist. I pay cash to prove myself
no shoplifter. Still, I abscond with my black feelings: crisp toast points
dunked in fig jam. On one hand, I must think very highly of myself
to come here. Then again, that sounds like something I would say.
"Message from the Free Smiths of Louisa County"
We weren’t truly free until
we read the Amendment ourselves
all the way to Lincoln’s signature, dark vines
gathering over the page. A. Lincoln said we
should go forth, leaving bondage forever
but we weren’t truly free until
we signed our own names & read them
back to ourselves. Our names, not our marks
dark vines gathered at X. Lincoln’s signature
looked so calm, a brown river of stones
worn smooth with patience. We had no time
to catch up. We weren’t truly free until
we’d scaled the high turret of B or unlatched
the strap where H buckles itself. Still, it took years
to reach Lincoln’s signature, dark vines
gathering. Our jagged serifs serrated the pages
we signed. We wrote out our wills. You write
poems about Lincoln, dark little vines of until.
But we weren’t truly free. Read the amendment.
You’re on a train & your ancestors are in the Quiet Car.
The Quiet Car is locked with a password you can’t decrypt.
You’re a professional password decrypter, but your ancestors are demolition experts.
You’re wearing black tactical gear & your ancestors are wearing black tactical gear.
You’re dashing through each compartment, slamming doors open, while your ancestors lay small explosives.
As heat expands within the carriage, you escape through a picture window.
You climb to the top of the train & your ancestors rappel down the sides.
You’re rappelling down one side of the train when you glimpse your ancestors above you.
They leap from carriage to carriage as if weightless, as if drifting, as if curling tongues of snow.
You cling to the side of the train as each of your ancestors lifts away from you.
They float into the cloud of themselves.
In the rushing light, you perceive them as hundreds slow snake doctors.
O—
you begin.
"The Shop at Monticello"
I’m a black body in this Commonwealth, which turned black bodies
into money. Now, I have money to spend on little trinkets to remind me
of this fact. I’m a money machine & my body constitutes the common
wealth. I spend & spend in order to support this. I support this mountain
with my black money. Strange mountain in late bloom. Strange mansion
built on mountains of wealth. I spend so much, I’m late for the tour
where I’m a blooming black dollar sign. I look good in the Dome Room
prowling its high-gloss floor. It’s common to desire such flooring
for my own home, but owning a home is still strange. My blackness
makes strange tools for a living, rakes the strangeness like dirt. I like to
rake my hands over merchandise: bayberry votives, English hyssop
in crisp sachets. I like this Engraved Pewter Bookmark so much suddenly
I line up for it, clenching my upright fist. I pay cash to prove myself
no shoplifter. Still, I abscond with my black feelings: crisp toast points
dunked in fig jam. On one hand, I must think very highly of myself
to come here. Then again, that sounds like something I would say.
"Message from the Free Smiths of Louisa County"
We weren’t truly free until
we read the Amendment ourselves
all the way to Lincoln’s signature, dark vines
gathering over the page. A. Lincoln said we
should go forth, leaving bondage forever
but we weren’t truly free until
we signed our own names & read them
back to ourselves. Our names, not our marks
dark vines gathered at X. Lincoln’s signature
looked so calm, a brown river of stones
worn smooth with patience. We had no time
to catch up. We weren’t truly free until
we’d scaled the high turret of B or unlatched
the strap where H buckles itself. Still, it took years
to reach Lincoln’s signature, dark vines
gathering. Our jagged serifs serrated the pages
we signed. We wrote out our wills. You write
poems about Lincoln, dark little vines of until.
But we weren’t truly free. Read the amendment.
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3.5
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About Kiki Petrosino
Kiki Petrosino is the author of four books of poetry: White Blood (2020); Witch Wife (2017); Hymn for the Black Terrific (2013); and Fort Red Border (2009)—all from Sarabande Books. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Best American Poetry, The Nation, The New York Times, FENCE, Gulf Coast, Jubilat, Tin House, and online at Ploughshares. Previously Director of Creative Writing at the University of Louisville, she now teaches at the University of Virginia as a Professor of Poetry. Petrosino is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Fellowship in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an Al Smith Fellowship Award from the Kentucky Arts Council. She lives in Charlottesville.
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