A Poem by Morgan Parker
by Mark Bibbins, Editor
Preface to a Twenty Volume Joke Book
“And now, each night I count the stars. / And each night I get the same number.”
-Amiri Baraka, “Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note”
I’m done with The Real World
Now I watch Top Chef
And dream about a life of tasting
And get so hungry I could die
I don’t root for the moon-face
Pale in his intention
I’m grown up
I’m rooting for the black girl
Cooking fried chicken for the first challenge
All my life I taste
“Whatever man I’m a black girl”
Shaking her afro
My feelings are pretty real
Sexism is pretty real
No one tells me I’m beautiful
I dream about tasting
In all my baby photos I have this
Look like oh my god
I feel sorry
I have always been terrified to be
This is just a taste
It’s not ready yet
Roll the token around on your tongue
And let it breathe back at you
I butter my skin
A curse I drink and drink
When I wake up I never think
I will be told to be ashamed
I’m not ashamed
No one tells me I’m beautiful
Sometimes Stevie Wonder makes me cry
There is a little chill in the air
I have seen everyone before
I say everyone
Is dying but that is not what I mean
Everyone is getting killed
Animals with long greedy tongues
Animals living on blue mountains
Literally my body
Shaped like a question mark
I am trying to get lower to the ground
I am trying to breathe the soil
I want to know the future
Whatever man I’m black
No one tells me I’m safe
I’m done with singing
The only songs I know are work songs
I’m grown up chained
To bad ideas and sugar
My bad ideas are pretty real
One of them is dark arms in the sea
While the sun comes up
Minus one then plus one
I don’t think anything is a mystery
I know I’m ungrateful
I know I am very hungry
I wait too long to give up
Several eclipses pass
My hands burn and peel
Everyone is corny so I’m alone
Whatever man I’m alone
Oregano leaves shrivel I’m alone
I want to know the future
is a bright violet grape
Everything has skin
Everyone tells me sorry
I know the world is dangerous
Everyone tells me sorry
I am hallelujah the first plague
My name is suitable for spitting
Please touch me
all I have
are these terrible animals
this hunger
Morgan Parker is the author of Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night (Switchback Books, 2015). She is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and a Pushcart Prize winner. She lives in Brooklyn.
You will find more poems here. You may contact the editor at [email protected].