Valentine's minus 4

Red, in different shades, is the color for Valentine’s Day. That means on or before the fourteenth of this month we’ll start looking at the local clusters of dogwood to see if the colors of their stems have brightened yet. I bet we can find a few more vases and places to set them if we collect some dogwood stems to help brighten the rooms and hasten the feeling of spring’s arrival.

red osier dogwood in February

Photo by J. Harrington

Red, again in different shades for arteries (bright) or veins (dark), is a color that comes into view or to mind all too often in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric.

Citizen came out in October 2014. In the first printing, according to a Graywolf publicist, Page 134 read:

November 23, 2012 / In Memory of Jordan Russell Davis  

That was the date the black 17-year-old was gunned down in Jacksonville, Florida.

The next page, 135, was headed:

February 15, 2014 / The Justice System

That was the date the prosecution of Davis’ shooter, Michael Dunn, ended in a mistrial. (Dunn was later convicted, in October, of first-degree murder.)

But for the second printing, which went to press on Sept. 24, 2014, Rankine chose to add another name to Page 134’s written monument—that of Ferguson’s Michael Brown. The new edition read:

November 23, 2012 / In Memory of Jordan Russell Davis

August 9, 2014 / In Memory of Michael Brown

Now, the third printing, from Nov. 20, 2014, shows the most powerful change yet. The phrase “In Memory Of” repeats down the side of Page 134, with the names of victims arrayed to the right: Jordan Russell Davis, Eric Garner, John Crawford, and Michael Brown. Blank spaces next to the remaining “In Memories” suggest that more black men will eventually join the ranks of those already fallen.

As we approach Valentine’s Day almost a decade after the third printing, it’s more than disheartening to think how much longer, with how many more names, could be added to pages 134 and following. [My copy of Citizen has a list that stops at the name Sandra Bland, “a 28-year-old African-American woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, on July 13, 2015, three days after being arrested during a traffic stop.”]

I’d love to listen to, or read a transcript of, a conversation between Amanda Gorman, talking about Call Us What We Carry and Claudia Rankine, discussing Citizen and whether the former contradicts or complements the latter.

To return to a Valentine’s theme, “Only love can break a heart, only love can mend it again.”

from Citizen, VI [I knew whatever was in front of me was happening]

Claudia Rankine

I knew whatever was in front of me was happening and then the police vehicle came to a screeching halt in front of me like they were setting up a blockade. Everywhere were flashes, a siren sounding and a stretched-out roar. Get on the ground. Get on the ground now. Then I just knew.

And you are not the guy and still you fit the description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description.

 

I left my client's house knowing I would be pulled over. I knew. I just knew. I opened my briefcase on the passenger seat, just so they could see. Yes officer rolled around on my tongue, which grew out of a bell that could never ring because its emergency was a tolling I was meant to swallow.

In a landscape drawn from an ocean bed, you can't drive yourself sane—so angry you are crying. You can't drive yourself sane. This motion wears a guy out. Our motion is wearing you out and still you are not that guy.

 

//

 

Then flashes, a siren, a stretched-out roar—and you are not the guy and still you fit the description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description.

Get on the ground. Get on the ground now. I must have been speeding. No, you weren't speeding. I wasn't speeding? You didn't do anything wrong. Then why are you pulling me over? Why am I pulled over? Put your hands where they can be seen. Put your hands in the air. Put your hands up.

Then you are stretched out on the hood. Then cuffed. Get on the ground now.

 

//

 

Each time it begins in the same way, it doesn't begin the same way, each time it begins it's the same. Flashes, a siren, the stretched-out roar—

Maybe because home was a hood the officer could not afford, not that a reason was needed, I was pulled out of my vehicle a block from my door, handcuffed and pushed into the police vehicle's backseat, the officer's knee pressing into my collarbone, the officer's warm breath vacating a face creased into the smile of its own private joke.

Each time it begins in the same way, it doesn't begin the same way, each time it begins it's the same.

Go ahead hit me motherfucker fled my lips and the officer did not need to hit me, the officer did not need anything from me except the look on my face on the drive across town. You can't drive yourself sane. You are not insane. Our motion is wearing you out. You are not the guy.

 

//

 

This is what it looks like. You know this is wrong. This is not what it looks like. You need to be quiet. This is wrong. You need to close your mouth now. This is what it looks like. Why are you talking if you haven't done anything wrong?

And you are not the guy and still you fit the description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description.

 

//

 

In a landscape drawn from an ocean bed, you can't drive yourself sane—so angry you can't drive yourself sane.

The charge the officer decided on was exhibition of speed. I was told, after the fingerprinting, to stand naked. I stood naked. It was only then I was instructed to dress, to leave, to walk all those miles back home.

And still you are not the guy and still you fit the description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description.

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