“Close Encounters" by Marcus Wicker

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 27, 2017   Close Encounters   Marcus Wicker

I was a real cute kid. Ask anybody. My father likes to tell a story about a modeling scout   who spotted us out midday shopping at the Briarwood Mall. Imagine five-year-old me,   all sailor stripes & junior afro, doing a full pull-up on the magazine kiosk: Got any Keats? No doubt   something I'd heard watching Jeopardy with granny, but it mattered not   to the tickled pink lady. Oh, you're just soooo sweet! What a cutie-sweet! she decreed, handing dad   her flowery card. It wouldn't stop there. My 10th birthday, whole neighborhood invited,   I strutted down the stairs in a white sports coat like, Look, folks. In case you're wondering,   I'm the host! My mother told Mrs. Holbrook He was born full-grown with a briefcase. As I'm sure   you will be, little sewn seed, undone. Future me. Dear son, the defacing starts much later.   After desegregation sparks the awkward clutch of Coach clutches on campus busses, but before   the riots in Baltimore. It started a few days before I turned thirty, Invisibility. Home from teaching   the sons & daughters of Indiana farm hands it's ok to write poems, same briefcase slung   tired across wrinkled linen, you'd have thought I accosted her—Maria—when I stooped down   to pluck my mother a pair of magenta tulips     from her own thriving garden, & she shrieked   Why are you staring at my lawn! Maria who used to slide teen-me a twenty to occupy her   daughter in the playpen while she grabbed a bottle of Bordeaux from the basement   before the real nanny arrived. She must have seen straight through me, into the distant past, alternate   reality when your grandparents' neighboring residence would have been a servants', & I   in that moment, for the first time, unsaw her. As primer. A kind of manila cardstock    I'd failed to imprint. Son, sometimes this happens. It happens in gated spaces when you look like   a lock pick. See the 44th president. Scratch that. It happens in gated spaces, as the lone   locksmith. & if I'm being honest, the happy way things are going between   me & E., you may well resemble him.    Don't count yourself precious. Truth is,   too soon, you will bend down to rob a few bright blossoms from your own land &   look away from the earth to make certain you haven't been ogled.   This phantom guilt applied to a nape through the eyes of every blind Maria,   here's the key: try not to let it die. Now run to the closest mirror, quickly   remember how sweet the fleeting love.            Copyright © 2017 Marcus Wicker. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "'Close Encounters' began as a therapeutic exercise—an invective written to an ex-next-door neighbor who was unwilling to acknowledge my presence as anything other than a threat. But during revision, when the actual healing took place, the poem's tone and audience changed. It never ceases to amaze me, the anodyne that is poetry. —Marcus Wicker   Marcus Wicker is the author of Silencer, forthcoming in September 2017 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He lives in Lansing, Michigan.   Poetry by Wicker   Silencer (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017) "C.R.E.A.M." by Danez Smith "Lush Life" by Morgan Parker "Washington Mews" by Rowan Ricardo Phillips Today Is Poem in Your Pocket Day   Join the celebration by choosing a poem to carry with you and share with others throughout the day and on social media using #pocketpoem. Visit Poets.org to find a poem and to learn more. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038