from “Bildungsroman” by Malachi Black

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend March 9, 2016   from “Bildungsroman”   Malachi Black

i.m. Scott David Campbell (1982-2012)   Streetlights were our stars, hanging from the midnight                                            in a planetary arc above each empty ShopRite     parking lot—spreading                                             steam-bright through the neon dark— buzzing like ghost locusts,                                        trembling in the chrome trance of an electrical charge nested in each exoskeleton—                                         pulling, pooling a single syllable of light from the long braid                                               of the powerlines sighing above us as we climbed     through bedroom windows                                        with our hair combed and our high-tops carefully untied— as we clung to vinyl siding,                                        as we crawled crablike across rooftops, edging toe-first toward the gutters                                        so as not to rouse the dogs—as we crept down     onto cold drainpipes                                             through the lightning in our lungs, leaping at last into our shadows and at last                                        onto the lawn, landing as if in genuflection to the afterhours fog—                                        fluorescent as the breath we left beside us on the train tracks                                        as we walked each toward the others, toward the barebulb                                        glow of stardust on the dumpsters in the vacant late-night, lost            Copyright © 2016 Malachi Black. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “‘Bildungsroman’ is a work of communal elegy. This excerpt is dedicated to the memory of Scott Campbell, my friend, co-conspirator, and classmate of twelve years, who was found dead in his car of a drug overdose several months before his thirtieth birthday.” —Malachi Black   Malachi Black is the author of Storm Toward Morning (Copper Canyon Press, 2014). He teaches at the University of San Diego and lives in San Diego, California. Poetry by Black   Storm Toward Morning (Copper Canyon Press, 2014) "Rite de Passage and the Irony of the Sharpshooter" by John Kinsella from "We Do the Polis" by David Buuck "Modern Declaration" by Edna St. Vincent Millay Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. 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