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    Dangerous Goods: Poems
    Dangerous Goods: Poems
    Dangerous Goods: Poems
    Ebook127 pages41 minutes

    Dangerous Goods: Poems

    By Sean Hill

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    WINNER OF THE MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD

    From the poet whose stunning debut was praised as “transcendent” by Kevin Young and “steadily confident” by Carl Phillips, Dangerous Goods tracks its speaker throughout North America and abroad, illuminating the ways in which home and place may inhabit one another comfortably or uncomfortably—or both, simultaneously.

    From the Bahamas, London, and Cairo to Bemidji, Minnesota, and Milledgeville, Georgia, Sean Hill interweaves the contemporary with the historical, and explores with urgency the relationships among travel, migration, alienation, and home. Here, playful “postcard” poems addressed to Nostalgia and My Third Crush Today sit alongside powerful reflections on the immigration of African Americans to Liberia during and after the era of slavery. Such range and formal innovation make Hill’s second collection both rare and exhilarating. Part shadowbox, part migration map, part travelogue-in-verse, Dangerous Goods is poignant, elegant, and deeply moving.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMilkweed Editions
    Release dateJan 21, 2014
    ISBN9781571318954
    Dangerous Goods: Poems

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      Book preview

      Dangerous Goods - Sean Hill

      DISTANCE GROWS IN THE BONES

      At a certain point I lost track of you.

      —AGHA SHAHID ALI FAREWELL

      POSTCARD TO WRONG ADDRESS

      Yesterday I was, one place to begin

      and Today I saw, another, but I

      know I doesn’t matter to you. You

      don’t know I or me for that matter.

      But you are appropriate—

      appropriately unfit like the not it

      we sang out in our childhood games.

      You’re like a confessional or, maybe,

      the restaurant suggestion box;

      you don’t care if I’m penitent

      or cynical. I could tell you about

      the side of paradise I hiked

      today with its flora and fauna—

      the birds! or the Sidle Parade,

      a subtle spectacle I saw yesterday,

      and it matters not. I could tell

      you how I really feel about my

      father or my shoe size, and they’d

      both have the same weight like

      the Weighing of the Heart—the soul

      needs to balance the feather to gain

      entry into heaven. Tomorrow

      I intend to go to the Dead Man’s

      Button Museum. They’re also

      called dead man’s throttles—installed

      in trains in case an engineer keels

      over. Without pressure, the brakes engage.

      POSTCARD TO EDUARDO

      for E. Corral

      Leaving Dickinson, ND, on 94W with the sun

      rising at our backs, a tractor trailer in front

      and from the height of my vision, from nowhere,

      or from heaven, a wine-soaked handkerchief, trailing

      its edges, falls as quiet as a bruise into the next

      lane over—a barn swallow caught in the truck’s wash.

      They once lived in caves, but now make their nests

      in man-made shelters, under bridges and barn eaves—

      barns where might be kept a horse’s harness,

      the parts of which you recited to me once—crupper,

      martingale, throatlatch—rolling your r’s, lashing those

      words lavishly for all they’re worth. I’ve since been told

      one should always keep the throatlatch nice and loose.

      POSTCARD FROM A DESTINATION

      I’ve heard a man would need a keel

      bone six feet long

      to cradle muscle enough to pull him

      up on his own, keep him in the air,

      or wind between a breeze and a gale,

      a bit more than enough water

      to drown in, and a sense

      of displacement to set sail.

      A keel bone is not a rudder, but

      either can get you here.

      I suppose I should say, it was warm

      and clear here today, or

      boats have keels and birds

      have keel bones.

      Was I the space between the ruffled

      feathers on a robin’s red breast

      —a wispy yen for warmth—before

      you knew me?

      A keel’s leading edge

      is called a cutwater,

      not to be confused with

      a shearwater—a seabird

      seldom seen from shore.

      This note could fit in a bottle; one’s

      being emptied; the last red drop rolls

      down its neck.

      Soon dregs will rest in the curve

      of the wineglass’s belly—a hammock’s

      sag here, where the day’s dregs sit on the sea

      at the far edge of everything.

      Here is me; I am here; I am desire; I

      am nothing when you come, I fear.

      I’ll miss you when you’re here. Stay

      home; keep me forever.

      BAHAMAS VOYAGE: MEDITATIONS ON BLACKS ON BOATS

      Day 1

      Up the gangway of the Big Red Boat

      the SS Atlantic

      white, red, and blue

      banners and streamers

      A colorful crew croons along

      The Star-Spangled Banner

      Accents thick sing-songy high

      and guttural low as the boat

      leaves port out to sea traveling slow

      Day 2

      A cruise to the Bahamas

      on the 4th of July

      occasioned by a family reunion

      Below decks cramped in with

      my little brother

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