The Zebra Goes Wild Where the Sidewalk Ends
By Henry Dumas
I
Neon stripes tighten my wall
where my crayon landlord hangs
from a bent nail.
My black father sits crooked
in the kitchen
drunk on Jesus’ blood turned
to cheap wine.
In his tremor he curses
the landlord who grins
from inside the rent book.
My father’s eyes are
bolls of cotton.
He sits upon the landlord’s
operating table,
the needle of the nation
sucking his soul.
II
Chains of light race over
my stricken city.
Glittering web spun by
the white widow spider.
I see this wild arena
where we are harnessed
by alien electric shadows.
Even when the sun washes
the debris
I will recall my landlord
hanging in my room
and my father moaning in
Jesus’ tomb.
In America all zebras
are in the zoo.
I hear the piston bark
and ibm spark:
let us program rabies.
the madness is foaming now.
No wild zebras roam the American plain.
The mad dogs are running.
The African zebra is gone into the dust.
I see the shadow thieves coming
and my father on the specimen table.
Henry Dumas, “The Zebra Goes Wild Where the Sidewalk Ends” from The Selected Poetry of Henry Dumas, published by Thunder's Mouth Press. Copyright © 1968-2010 by Loretta Dumas and Eugene B. Redmond. Used by permission of the Hentry Dumas Estate, Eugene B. Redmond, Executor.
Source:
The Selected Poetry of Henry Dumas
(Thunder's Mouth Press, 1989)
