by Richard Hamilton
i.
Was it the tour guide’s bedroom eyes,
or the question: to whom benign does the I in
I Love Lucy belong? If I pratfall, don
houndstooth, bark at the implausible line,
unable to speak, red-haired American girls
mirror, representations beach
like soft whales. In a season’s transcript,
even now, talk of your 1936 affiliation
with the Communist Party is a red balloon.
What else can the poem render?
Lobster bisque seen fished from today’s trash can.
Stodgy punch of air to an anti-communist
lark. Haiti, Palestine. The haggard look
I embody after self-censure. My bovine eyes,
two mannequins the tour bus hides.
ii.
Desi was such a cornice in your life.
Outsized molding and aesthetic beauty,
I’m not convinced, if golden carapace,
The ornament belied your private rift,
That carved into the formulaic kitsch
A doting smile and vetch of marriage vows,
There etched so too were tireless martinis,
Green olives pocked the lucent brine—
They mustn’t say much more than you or I.
Climbing down the patinaed atmosphere,
Cradling those hotly contested pronouns,
Desi’s exile, congas to bravado
Spoke of automations, like art objects
Lily’s elisions mock the blind ascent.
Richard Hamilton (he/they) was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and raised in the American south. He presently holds the 2023-2025 post-doctoral creative writing fellowship at the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics at the University of Pittsburgh. His books of poetry include Rest of Us (Re-Center Press, 2021) and Discordant (Autumn House Press, 2023), winner of the 2022 CAAPP book prize selected by poet Evie Shockley. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA.