In the Language of My Captor Read online

Run I run home I run so hard I throw up

  Soon as I shut the front door right there / Got my ass

  whipped for that

  But not for running but for throwing up

  I told my momma

  everything and all she did was shake her head

  And you know Mmm mmm mmm and What

  A shame and she went back to what she had been

  Doing in the kitchen

  and I followed her

  And I sat down and waited / Like I was waiting

  For supper and we didn’t talk about my aunt no more

  Anyway no I never learned to play no banjo

  no in the movies I just

  Wiggled my fingers

  and they laid the music over me

  Still When I Picture It the Face of God Is a White Man’s Face

  Before it disappears

  on the sand his long white beard before it disappears

  The face of the man

  in the waves I ask her does she see it ask her does

  The old man in the waves as the waves crest she see it does

  she see the old man his

  White his face crumbling face it looks

  as old as he’s as old as

  The ocean looks

  and for a moment almost looks

  His face like it’s all the way him

  As never such old skin

  looks my / Daughter age four

  She thinks it might he might be real she shouts Hello

  And after there’s no answer answers No

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Dan Chaon, Gabriel Fried, Jorie Graham, Garth Greenwell, Derek Gromadzki, Melissa McCrae, Wesley Rothman, Suzanna Tamminen, and G. C. Waldrep for their advice, counsel, presence, and patience. And thanks to the editors and staffs of the following journals, in which earlier versions of these poems first appeared:

  Bear Review: “Jefferson Davis the Adoptive Father of the Mulatto Jim Limber Dreams the Future of the American Entertainment Industry as He Dreams He Is Arguing His Cause in Washington D.C.” and “Jim Limber the Adopted Mulatto Son of Jefferson Davis Cannot Afford to Make Demands of Love”

  Conduit: “Banjo Yes Asks a Journalist” and “Banjo Yes Talks About Motivation”

  Gulf Coast: “His God” and “Panopticon”

  Handsome: “What Do You Know About Shame”

  Horsethief: “Jim Limber the Adopted Mulatto Son of Jefferson Davis Cannot Depend Upon Political or Economic Power to Be the Wellspring of His Freedom” and “Jim Limber the Adopted Mulatto Son of Jefferson Davis Inherits the Kingdom of the Negro in America”

  Lit Hub: “(hope)(lessness)”

  Missouri Review: “Jim Limber the Adoptive Mulatto Son of Jefferson Davis Met His Adoptive Mother Varina Davis at a Crossroads”

  Omniverse: “In the Language,” “Privacy,” and “Privacy 2”

  Pinwheel: “Banjo Yes Receives a Lifetime Achievement Award” and “Banjo Yes Talks About His First White Wife”

  Poetry: “Jim Limber the Adopted Mulatto Son of Jefferson Davis Was Another Child First” and “Still When I Picture It the Face of God Is a White Man’s Face”

  The Rumpus: “Banjo Yes Plucks and Apple from a Tree in a Park

  The Spectacle: “Banjo Yes Recalls His First Movies”

  West Branch Wired: “Jim Limber the Adoptive Mulatto Son of Jefferson Davis Considers His Place in History” and “Jefferson Davis the Adoptive Father of the Mulatto Jim Limber Dreams of an Unknowing Love”

  Parts of “Purgatory: A Memoir” appeared in an e-chapbook called 30 Paragraphs, published by Essay Press.

  “Jim Limber the Adopted Mulatto Son of Jefferson Davis Visits His Adoptive Parents After the War” was originally published as part of the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day project.

  “His God” was republished by Poetry Daily.

  “Sunlight” was originally published as part of the PEN American Center’s Poetry Series.

  “Still When I Picture It the Face of God Is a White Man’s Face” was republished in Pushcart Prize XLI: Best of the Small Presses.

  Shane McCrae teaches at Oberlin College and Spalding University. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and a National Endowments for the Arts Fellowship. He is the author of many volumes of poetry, including The Animal Too Big to Kill (Persea Books, 2015); Forgiveness Forgiveness (Factory Hollow Press, 2014); and Blood (Noemi Press, 2013).